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Achieving equal citizenship: meeting the challenges of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Tizard Learning Disability Review, 14(2), April 2009, pp.4-9.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
The recent UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides a powerful vision of the opportunities and support which should be available to intellectually disabled people and their families, based on a principled commitment to equal citizenship. When ratified nationally, this wide-ranging Convention has the force of law. Nevertheless there is a long road to travel in securing its successful implementation. Looking across different aspects of the Convention (concerned for example with education, community living or employment) the author identifies three common ‘building blocks’ for progress, focused respectively on strengthening self-determination, promoting mainstream inclusion and providing personalised support. Experience in many countries of the ‘North’ suggests 12 key elements in national and local strategies to address these three requirements. It also points to the need for active partnership between civil society organisations, government and the current service system in which managers and other professional staff can play an important catalytic role. One priority is to invest in developing the capacity for the whole-system leadership required to bring together the other 12 elements of strategy so as to create a virtuous spiral of positive change. Effective ways of sharing experience across countries on how all this can best be done need to be found.
Can we turn this vision into reality
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Community Living, 19(3), February 2006, pp.6-8.
- Publisher:
- Hexagon Publishing
'Our health, our care, our say', the White Paper on community services, promises integrated health and social care, closer to people's homes, improved health, independence and better support for people with long term needs. The author looks at what this should mean for people with learning difficulties.
Achieving positive change in people's lives through the national learning disabilities strategy: lessons from an American experience
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Tizard Learning Disability Review, 5(3), August 2000, pp.30-36.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
In 1999, a team from England, comprising self-advocates, family members, leading professionals and policy-makers, participated in the annual 'collaborative Academy' of the US president's committee on Mental Retardation. Fundamental to the academy methods is the commitment to work inclusively across different interests and engage directly with experiences. This paper identifies 41 lessons drawn by the team from US experience, including research- and practice-based perspectives relevant to maximising progress in the context of the forthcoming national learning disability strategy in England. Focusing on the four main themes of learning from good stories, strengthening effective leadership, establishing inclusive policies and building better partnerships in policy-making, action points are identified at local, regional and national levels. The paper also promotes the value of the academy method itself as a vehicle for promoting strategy implementation, describing an enhanced role for selected universities in supporting informed change.
Social inclusion and community care
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Managing Community Care, 2000, pp.5-7.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
The pursuit of concerted policies to build a more inclusive society or, more precisely, to tackle social exclusion, is arguably the 'big idea' of New Labour's first year in government. Asks what opportunities and challenges this over-arching policy agenda offers for improving what we call community care.
Untapped potential
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 25.2.99, 1999, p.7.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
The author argues that the welter of new government initiatives could do more to help people whose learning difficulties put them at risk of social exclusion.
Promoting a better life for people with learning disabilities and their families: a practical agenda for the new government
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 25(3), 1997, pp.90-94.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
It is generally agreed that the goal of public policy should be to ensure that people with learning disabilities have the opportunities and support required to live 'ordinary lives' in the community. This paper identifies policy initiatives which a government could take to make a difference in many people's lives and signal its longer term commitment to achieving better lives for all.
Revaluing the NHS: empowering ourselves to shape a health care system fit for the 21st century
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- Policy and Politics, 24(3), July 1996, pp.287-297.
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
Like the United Kingdom itself, the National Health Service needs renewal to meet the challenge of the next century. Critically, this requires that we reexamine the values which underpin the NHS-building in its postwar foundations but learning from subsequent disappointments and adapting to contemporary conditions. By reflecting on personal experiences this article identifies values informing the everyday practice of successful health care and shows their relationship to wider social assumptions which provide the context for health system design.
Health and social services relationships in the reform of long term care: giving impetus to local service development
- Author:
- TOWELL David
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 15(5), October 1985, pp.451-456.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Looks at the implications for health and social services of changes in the ways in which long term care is delivered, and in particular at the move towards community care.
Person-centred planning in its strategic context
- Authors:
- TOWELL David, SANDERSON Helen
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 17(1), March 2004, pp.17-21.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Valuing People, the English national strategy launched in 2001 is founded on the twin principles of self-determination and social inclusion. It promotes a vision of people with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of life. To achieve this goal, it seeks to integrate a wide variety of elements, in which person-centred planning (PCP) is one. The authors present their critique in three main ways: by fully recognising the extent to which PCP is an intrinsic element of the national strategy, helping to operationalise its core principles; by crediting the ways in which individual planning and action are intended to become part of one continuous process; and by showing how the strategy addresses the challenge of scale by prioritising quality rather than quantity in implementing PCP, with the aspiration of creating a virtuous spiral of positive change.
Achieving positive change in people's lives through the National Learning Disability Strategy: an invitation to partnership between higher education and the world of practice
- Authors:
- TOWELL David, HOLLINS Sheila
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 28(4), December 2000, pp.129-136.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The launch of the National Learning Disability Strategy (NLDS) in England (and parallel initiatives in Scotland and Wales) provides the best opportunity for a generation to close the huge gap between the aspirations of people with learning disabilities and their families for a full life, and most people's current experience. The implementation of the NLDS is a complex challenge, requiring new forms of partnership among a wide range of stakeholders to deliver sustainable change. The present paper describes an enhanced role for universities as champions of local progress, promoting, supporting and evaluating informed change through a range of functions which go well beyond the traditional focus on research and teaching. It is also an invitation to relevant centres, or coalitions of centres on a regional basis, to explore with people, families and public agencies the optimum form of their contribution to these new partnerships.