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AbstractVery little is known about how relationships between people with disabilities and their paid support workers are positioned in policy. With the policy shift toward choice of provider, individualised approaches, person centredness and self‐directed funding, the nature of their relationship assumes a more prominent role in the quality of support practice. The policy analysis in this article explores the extent to which current disability policy acknowledges, promotes, or diminishes the relationships between people with disabilities and workers, in their organisational context. It uses Honneth's conditions for recognition—love (cared for), rights (respected) and solidarity or social esteem (valued)—to understand how policy positions mutuality in the relationship. The policy review applied a three‐stage process: categorisation of policies, textual analysis and content analysis to policy documents at four levels—international, Australian federal, state and organisational in two case studies. The analysis revealed that while a rights framework is explicit in most policies, the emphases on the conditions for recognition within a relationship between people with disabilities and workers are compromised in instructional policies that attempt to manage the tension between choice and risk, particularly at the organisational level.

Summary This article uses Ikäheimo's concept of institutionally mediated recognition to explore how organisational norms and rules facilitate and constrain interpersonal recognition between a young person with disabilities and their paid support worker. The experience of recognition is important because it reflects the quality of this relationship and shapes the identity of both people in the paid support relationship. To understand the relationships between the pairs, Honneth's interpersonal modes of recognition were applied as the theoretical lens. The data were generated from photovoice, social mapping, interviews and workshops with 42 pairs of young people and their support workers in six organisations. These data were then analysed for the ways institutional practices mediated the interpersonal relationships. Findings The findings revealed four practices in which the organisational context mediated interpersonal recognition: the support sites, application of organisation policies, practices to manage staff and practices to organise young people's support. Some organisational practices facilitated recognition within the relationships, whereas others were viewed by the pair or managers as constraints on conditions for recognition. Some young people and support workers also exercised initiative or resisted the organisational constraints in the way they conducted their relationship. Applications The findings imply that to promote quality relationships, organisations must create the practice conditions for recognition, respond to misrecognition, and encourage practices that make room for initiative and change within the paid relationship. This requires supervision and training for and by support workers and people with disability.

Wide-ranging, authoritative and grounded in the expertise of people with intellectual disabilities, this book offers an authentic account of the challenges those with intellectual disabilities face in their relationships and sex lives across the globe and explores what society needs to do to respect their rights