Adult Social Care Glossary, v 0.6

“We want to empower our customers…”

“We empower people with lived experience to use their own voice”

“We want to empower our service users to work as equal partners with us.”

Argh.

We – the ‘professionals’ – give you – the ‘users’ – power. If we feel like it. Maybe. Sometimes. Or maybe not.

We see power as ours to give away.

And, by default, to take away.

And you are ‘ours’. We own you. We control you. We’re in charge.

“Empowerment: An illusory gift from professional to a not quite human.” Mark Neary[12]

We absolutely need to talk about power. We need to be aware of – and honest about – the power we hold in different roles and remove the obstacles to power being shared (including by paying attention to the way our policies and our practice and our language divide and exclude). But by talking about ‘empowering people’ and ‘giving power to people’ we’re further embedding the very power dynamic we are (in theory) aiming to remove.

[12] Parley Vouz Health & Social Care? (An A to Z of Carespeak), Mark Neary, Love, Belief and Balls