Editorial

Peer reviewe

Women, disability, and culture

Women and girls with disabilities find themselves constantly having to deal with multiple, intersectional discrimination due to both their gender and their disability, as well as social conditioning. Indeed, the intersection made up of factors such as race, ethnic origin, social background, cultural substrate, age, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, gender, disability, status as refugee or migrant and others besides, has a multiplying effect that increases discrimination yet further. Where conditions are equal, women with disabilities do not enjoy equal opportunities in terms of their participation in all aspects of society; rather, they are all too often excluded, amongst others from education, employment, access to poverty reduction programmes, from taking part in political and public lives and, moreover, some legislative deeds actually prevent them from making decisions regarding their own lives, also as regards sexual and reproductive rights. History, attitudes and prejudices of the societies to which we belong, including of families, have created and continue to feed into a negative stereotypical image of women and girls with disabilities, thereby helping further isolate and marginalise them yet more. Very often, they are also ignored by information media and, when they do gain media attention, the approach tends to considers them from the perspective of medical-assistance needs, silencing their abilities and valuable contribution to the society in which they live. The book seeks to pay the right attention to the condition of women with disabilities, offering points for reflection, also on the different, often invisible, cultural and social undertones that continue today to feed into prejudicial stereotypes. (Imprint: Nova Medicine and Health)

Attempting to mainstream ethnicity in a multi-country EU mental health and social inclusion project: lessons for social work

The article will outline the logic, parameters, and methodology of an attempt at mainstreaming ethnicity within EMILIA, an EU 6th FP multi-sites project focused on mental health and social inclusion over two years. Led by two social work researchers within a large multi-disciplinary group consisting of eight sites spread across Southern, Central and Northern Europe, alongside mainstreaming gender, we will look at the findings of the baseline audit, the ensuing action plans and the changes which followed. Examining the process and its outcomes for mainstreaming across the different sites and the services they provide for people experiencing mental health problems highlights the impact of country-specific policies on disclosure of information pertaining to ethnicity as well as country and site policies and practices pertaining to recognising the existence of ethnic inequality and tackling it. Issues underlying formal mainstreaming staff and users' training will be explored. The role of social work within a multi-disciplinary group will also be looked at, and the lessons for European social work will be outlined. The lessons pertain in part to the impact of the wide ranging variation in background, scope and focus on the role social work values, knowledge and skills can play in the intersection between mental health, parameters of social inclusion and mainstreaming ethnicity