As a member of society, all individuals must participating in the living environment to exchange, share and receive information, ideas which will build up the personality, promote the social characters in line with life course. Social participation is the indispensable aspect of all individuals. It is also the way to define their own social position and social role.According to United Nation’s Report (2007), it is estimated that nearly 10% of the world population (650 million people approximately) live with a disability. What is the disability? This is controversial definition which has been discussed in many approaches by social scientists as well as medical scientists. Recently, it is agreement on pointing out some details of the definition of disability and people with disability and it is also put into Convention of the Rights of Children, International Convention of People with disability. It can be expressed that disability as ‘the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities’ (Sheila Riddell and Nick Watson 2003, p.3).
Creating the favorable conditions for the disable in general and the disabled children in particular has been regarded in all documents (laws, ordinances, as well as social policies) of Vietnam Government. They concentrate on findings, solutions which are the best ways to help children with disability to overcome their difficulties and to integrate comprehensively with society.
In Vietnam, under recent social statistics and surveys by Vietnam Bureau of Statistics, the number of the disable children counts nearly 16% of the disabled and nearly 1% of Vietnamese population (Nam, M 2004). Disable children are living in less good conditions with low living standard. The reasons for the disabled status are inborn or by their life course events such as transport accidents, disaster, illness. The earlier disabled children integrate in society, the more successful they will meet in follow up stages of their life course. Researchers said that taking care, educating, and protecting children with disability must be paid more attention by the society.
As soon as established in 1945, the UN identified the fundamental strategies for the disabled people in general. During the period of 1945-1955, the UN also formed a special body on the disabled people that ran the projects on preventing the disability and rehabilitating social functions for the disabled. By the 8th UN Congress in 1952, the UN’s Commission on the social issues also concentrated on rehabilitations of the disabled physically and proposed the action plan with 10 issues relating the disabled. For the period of 1956 to 1970, the UN’s activities that focused on the disabled based on the social welfare perspectives. UN revalued its policies for the disabled during 1960, this was the institutionalized way as well as the methods that promoted the human demand leading to the social inclusion of the disabled. Since 1970, there were new directions in approaching to the disabled. The concept of the rights of people with disabilities had been regarded internationally. The disabled had their own rights on civil and politics as the others, besides the legal documents by the UN also defined rights on education, using health care and shelter services. In this period, many researchers identified the approaches to the disabled based on the human right. After 1990, the UN announced some programs for the disabled and decided the year for the disabled in 1981. At this time, many researches concentrated on the disabled in all aspects. The first International Conference on the disabled held in Singapore (from 30 November to 6 December 1981) and the International program for the disabled was approved by the UN on 3 December 1982 which concerned with 3 aspects as: Prevention, Rehabilitation and Equal Opportunities for All.
Followed these activities, the disabled decade was identified with the period of 1983 to 1992. It was said that the year of the disabled in 1981 had become the milestone for the policy, theoretical and practical history for the disabled assistance which also prevented the unequal treatment to the disabled and partially got achievements in human rights. The International program for the disabled affirmed that those issues on the disabled life will be solved by all countries rather than only a country isolately, which also need other contribution and social concerns. There are a lot of UN materials appeared in 1980s and 1990s which exposed the ideas on seeing the disabled as the people with non-disability equally. By December 1991, UN also approved the security standards for the mental health patients and improved the social conditions for mental health which include 22 basic principles concentrated on the freedom, human right, etc. From December 1993, the UN chose the date of international disabled on 3rd December annually. Afterward, the UN and its agencies always paid more attention to assist and researching the disabled issues and defined the disabled issues on all social development programs. During the end of 1990, UNICEF and UNHCR concentrated their interest in researching children issues relating to the disabled. A lot of researches and workshops on disabled children have been held and implemented worldwide and attracted the researchers’ interests. Up to now, there are some statistic package about the disabled by the UN’s Statistic Agency, such as: The basic statistics of the international disabled (1988), (1990), Handbook of developing statistics on programs and policies to the disabled (1996), and others.
Besides a lot of the UN and its agencies’ actions and researches on assisting to the children, the research tendencies to the children in general and disabled children in particular have been regarded by sociologists, psychologists, social workers, anthropologist, etc and other NGOs. There are some prominent researches, as Understanding and Responding to Children’s Needs in Inclusive Classrooms: A guide for teachers (UNESCO, 2001), concentrating on introducing to the teacher of inclusive classroom as well as on implementing the disabled children’s rights; Borman, D (2000) with research on Making a place for kids with disabilities, defining the creation of social settings for the disabled children.
In Vietnam, there are some researches on Enlarging the social setting for the disabled children (2002) aiming at promoting people’s awareness and assistance to the disabled children; Educating the disabled children (1986), concentrating the urgent problems of the disabled; Formulating the education model for the disabled children (Duy, T 1990) - considering (1) education model to the deaf children (2) education model for the blind children, (3) education model for learning difficulty’s children.
All these researches concentrate on inclusive education, assistance model to the disabled children, rehabilitation or education methods to the disabled children, there are lack of researches on social aspect of the disabled, especially on social inclusion of the disabled on their life. From these previous researches, as well as the requirements for making available social settings for the children with disability, the research on the social inclusion of the children with disability is required theoretically and practically. This research would aim at the following tasks: Firstly, identifying those social settings where the disabled children experienced the participation process, included: family, school and community. Which is the most inclusive environment? Secondly, what are the most difficulties that the disabled children met in their life in the integration process with others in each social setting?; Thirdly, what is the difference in integration process of the disabled children in the special schools and inclusive schools? And finally, what is the prominent factor in inclusive process: The relatives, the teachers, the peer groups or the others? Above all, which policy must be made to assisting the social inclusion process instead of integration one?
It is fact that researching the disability issues requires the long time approach to get the information as well as having the good attitudes to this vulnerable people. From this research questions, it is hope that this research would be effective and successful on answering above research questions as well as making new directions on social work and social policy with children in futures relevant to Vietnam context.
References
Borman, D (2000) ‘Making a place for kids with disabilities’, Greenwood Publishing Group, Wahsington.
Duy, T (1990), ‘Formulating the education model for the disabled children’, The Social Sciences Publisher, Hanoi.
Nam, M (2004), ‘Children, Family and Society’, The National Political House, Hanoi.
Riddell, S and Watson, N (2003), ‘Disability, Culture and Identity’, Pearson Education Limited
United Nation (2007), ‘Fact sheet on person with disability’, UN Press.
UNESCO (2001), ‘Disabled Children's Rights: A practical guide’, UNESCO Press.
(this paper was presented at monthly school seminars by HDR student, School of Social Work and Social Policy, UniSA, 2008)
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