For professionals
All people are entitled to a life in which they can shape their own lives within their possibilities.
For a long time, we professional workers, have had the idea ‘we know what is good for people’. This attitude encouraged dependency rather than self-determination.
To give substance to the fundamental right to shape one’s own life, requires a different attitude from the social worker.
It is one thing to name the goal of self-determination within the possibilities in a vision. But to actually apply it in daily practice requires a change process throughout the organisation. Not only for the direct care workers, but also for the management and the financial system.
Structures that have followed a fixed pattern for years will change because the starting point is the client and not the organisation.