Partner Relationships and Family Life through the Prism of Young Adults with Physical Disabilities

Magdalena Hanková, Soňa Vávrová

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Partner Relationships and Family Life through the Prism of Young Adults with Physical Disabilities

Magdalena Hanková, Soňa Vávrová

Medailon autora:

Magdalena Hanková, is a PhD student at the Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlín. Her research focuses not only on the partnerships and family lives of people with disabilities, but also on the emotional and social needs of individually integrated students with physical disabilities in the secondary school environment. She has been cooperating with Liga vozíčkářů (League of Wheelchair Users), Czech Republic.

Soňa Vávrová, Ph.D. deals with the issue of the total institution, deinstitutionalization and the transformation of residential social services and institutions for children and youth. She also focuses on the quality of social services and the application of quality standards into practice. She is currently the leader of grant project GA CR No. 13-04121S Understanding the Mechanism of Self-Regulation in Children and Minors in Institutional Care.

Abstrakt:

The issue of partner relationships and family life as one of the areas determining the quality of life of people with physical disabilities has been long neglected in the Czech environment. The situation is slowly improving, but there is still a lack of research on the personal lives of physically disabled people. Thus, the authors have focused on this under-researched area through qualitative research. The participants expressed their intimate experience during semi-structured interviews and the obtained data was analyzed in accordance with the principles of practice-based theory procedures. The results show that partner and sexual relationships are an integral part of young adults’ lives. The informants, on the other hand, identified some limits in their interpersonal relations which could generate a need for specialized help provided by social workers.