This free download contains two papers; here are the abstracts of each.
'Conversations with children with disabilities and their mothers', Maksuda Behum:
This paper from Bangladesh presents an overview of narrative approaches to work with mothers and their children who have intellectual disabilities. In what can be traumatic contexts, this work is based on mothers’ and children’s skills, knowledges, values, and connections. Through the course of both individual and group work, blame and stigma are externalised, and the love and care mothers have for their children – as well as their children’s ‘special abilities’ – are brought more to the fore. This paper also presents an alternative intake questionnaire that can help to diminish the effects of pathologising language, and elicit accounts of care and connection.
'Talking with mothers and children: An intake questionnaire', David Denborough & Maksuda Begum:
This questionnaire is designed as a supplementary intake tool. It has been developed in recognition of the particular experiences of mothers of children with disabilities. This intake tool has two purposes. Firstly, it enables the counsellor to learn about the particular skills and knowledge of mothers and children that can later become a focus for therapeutic conversations. Secondly, it is structured in a way that assists mothers to get in touch with their own skills and knowledges, and provides a healing way for the counsellor to respond.
