Search results for ‘Subject term:"learning disabilities"’ Sort:
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Strategic thinking
- Authors:
- DAVIES Jill, BURKE Christine
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Health Today, September 2012, pp.12-14.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
- Place of publication:
- Hove
People with learning disabilities are more likely to develop mental health problems compared to the general population. The Government’s mental health strategy, ‘No health without mental health’ (DH, 2011), makes several references to people with learning disabilities. In particular, it highlights the importance of mental health services for people with learning disabilities and autism, the need to ensure that mainstream services are inclusive to this group, including that staff have appropriate skills and can provide reasonable adjustments to meet individual needs. The strategy also mentions the need for early intervention to prevent later problems for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including those who have underlying or associated mental health problems. In 2012, the Government issued an accompanying implementation framework that aims to translate the ideals of the strategy into concrete actions on a local level. This article discusses what the implementation framework means for people with learning disabilities. It shows that, despite the strategy highlighting the needs of people with learning disabilities, the framework offers little specifically for this group. This raises concern that this group will remain off the radar for those in mainstream services and organisations that could support them to maintain their mental health and wellbeing.
Strategic thinking
- Authors:
- DAVIES Jill, BURKE Christine
- Journal article citation:
- Learning Disability Today, October 2012, pp.16-17.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
- Place of publication:
- Hove
People with learning disabilities are more likely to develop mental health problems compared to the general population. The Government’s mental health strategy, ‘No health without mental health’ (DH, 2011), makes several references to people with learning disabilities. In particular, it highlights the importance of mental health services for people with learning disabilities and autism, the need to ensure that mainstream services are inclusive to this group, including that staff have appropriate skills and can provide reasonable adjustments to meet individual needs. The strategy also mentions the need for early intervention to prevent later problems for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including those who have underlying or associated mental health problems. In 2012, the Government issued an accompanying implementation framework that aims to translate the ideals of the strategy into concrete actions on a local level. This article discusses what the implementation framework means for people with learning disabilities. It shows that, despite the strategy highlighting the needs of people with learning disabilities, the framework offers little specifically for this group. This raises concern that this group will remain off the radar for those in mainstream services and organisations that could support them to maintain their mental health and wellbeing.
Does every disabled child matter?: Hannah's story
- Authors:
- DERBYSHIRE Hannah, RUNSWICK-COLE Katherine, GOODLEY Dan
- Journal article citation:
- Learning Disability Today, July 2011, pp.30-32.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
- Place of publication:
- Hove
This article reviews the findings of an ESRC-funded research project, Does every child matter, post-Blair? which ran from September 2008 to April 2009. The article critically reviews the policy context of the Every Child Matters outcomes, outlines the research methodology used in the study and reports on one individual case, that of 15-year old Hannah who is credited as a co-author of this article. Hannah's story shows what a young person with a learning disability can achieve, given the right supports.
Supported employment for people with learning disabilities in the UK: the last 15 years
- Authors:
- MELLING Kathy, BEYER Stephen, KILSBY Mark
- Journal article citation:
- Tizard Learning Disability Review, 16(2), April 2011, pp.23-32.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
In the April 1997 issue of Tizard Learning Disability Review these authors wrote of their aspirations for the development of supported employment in the United Kingdom. This paper revisits these aspirations against a changing policy context with the introduction of Valuing People and Valuing People Now. It reviews developments in employment policy, innovation, the framework for funding supported employment and changes in the level of employment for people with learning disabilities since 1997. Despite significant improvements in policy, not much has changed for England in terms of the number of people with learning disabilities employed. However, there are a number of positive developments to draw on to ensure that this number increases. This article summarises the progress in this area over this 15 year period and the challenges that remain. It suggests the need for further action to deliver the Government's vision of employment inclusion and to secure the rights of people with learning disabilities to a place in the workplace.
Employment: what we have learned
- Author:
- SPENCER Charlotte
- Journal article citation:
- Tizard Learning Disability Review, 16(2), April 2011, pp.33-38.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
It is clear from many UK and international examples that people with learning disabilities can secure and retain jobs that employers value. With the right support, this applies to people with severe impairments as well as those with milder disabilities. This article summarises work done under Valuing People Now to improve employment prospects and outcomes for people with learning disabilities in England. It summarises the barriers to improvements, such as the benefit system, employer prejudice, and families’ low aspirations. It explains how understanding these barriers has helped to unlock solutions and new approaches. The Valuing People Employment Team has been attempting to tackle the barriers through: the Getting A Life demonstration sites; Project Search internships; the Jobs First project; and campaigns and training to increase work aspirations and expectations. Case examples demonstrate the use of these initiatives.
New public management and public services for people with an intellectual disability: a review of the implementation of valuing people in England
- Author:
- CUMELLA Stuart
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 5(3), September 2008, pp.178-186.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Public policy for people with an intellectual disability has been shaped since 1945 by universalistic ideas of human rights and social inclusion. These universalistic ideas are increasingly under challenge from consumerist ideas, which is reflected in public policy in the New Public Management (NPM). NPM involves a critique of poor coordination and quality in public services, and proposes the enhancement of consumer choice through a greater diversity of providers and market mechanisms to allow consumers to select between them, partnership arrangements to improve coordination, and target-setting and monitoring by governments. NPM has been widely applied internationally in the reform of public services, and has been implemented for services for people with an intellectual disability in England, following the white paper Valuing People in 2002. There is limited research data on the outcome of this policy, but it indicates that: (1) enhanced choice to be achieved by person-centred planning has probably affected only a minority of those eligible and has not changed access to public services; and (2) partnership boards have primarily existed to convey and manufacture consent for centrally determined policies. These problems match those identified in surveys of NPM in other sectors, but there is an additional concern that the consumerist ideas incorporated in Valuing People may be used by governments to replace, rather than supplement, policies to directly enhance access to public services through such measures as anti-discrimination laws. The review indicates a need to assess policies for people with an intellectual disability, in a wider social context and through international comparative research.
Deliver on the promises
- Author:
- BROAD Mike
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 17.01.08, 2008, pp.24-25.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
As the government commits to improving the lives of people with learning disabilities, the author examines the plans and role played by Community Care's 'A Life Like Any Other' campaign.
Trends in residential policies and services for people with intellectual disabilities in Taiwan
- Authors:
- CHOU Y.C., SCHALOCK R.L.
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 51(2), February 2007, pp.135-141.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
In Taiwan, 92-95% of people with an intellectual disability (ID) live with their families, with the remaining residing in residential facilities. Instead of funding community-living alternatives, the Taiwanese Government funds only registered facilities as part of its residential policies and services. The purpose of this study was to evaluate current policies and services trends regarding people with an ID in Taiwan. Both documentary research, such as an analysis of policies, services programmes, official statistics, surveys, reports and funding provision reports, and a mail survey, were conducted to examine current trends and characteristics of the 96 residential settings available for people with an ID in Taiwan. During the 1990s in Taiwan, residential programmes for people with an ID showed the biggest growth since 1952. Since the first 'Community Home' was launched in 1990, the number of smaller scale residential settings with a unit size of less than 30 has grown significantly, particularly since 2000. However, the rate of institutionalization of people with an ID and who live in the institutions has also risen. In Taiwan, unlike in Western societies, residential services for people with an ID provided by formal care systems are tending to grow in number, and these include both large and smaller residential settings.
Decoding Valuing People
- Authors:
- BURTON Mark, KAGAN Carolyn
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 21(4), June 2006, pp.299-313.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Government policy frameworks on the support of disabled people can often be difficult to ‘read’, as they contain contradictory elements that simultaneously support and confront social processes that create inequalities and oppression. Valuing People (VP), the UK government’s policy framework for learning disability (intellectual disability), provides such a context for work that enhances learning disabled people’s inclusion in community and society, and to reverse some of the systemic disadvantage they have experienced. However, as an uneasy amalgam of the progressive and the neoliberal, the romantic and the practical, it has been difficult to evaluate in order to use its opportunities and minimise its dangers. This article attempts to decode VP in terms of ideologies in human services, and the current New Labour policy mix. Its emphases on Person Centred Planning, Direct Payments and employment will be analysed to try to establish what VP means, and to suggest more adequate priorities. This analysis might also be relevant to other sectors where there is a similar problem of decoding their particular policy context.
The Valuing People vision
- Author:
- -
- Journal article citation:
- Viewpoint, March 2006, pp.16-19.
- Publisher:
- Mencap/Gateway
The learning disability white paper, 'Valuing People', was published five years ago this March. This article looks at achievements so far, and six leading figures in learning disability say what they consider to be Valuing People's biggest successes and disappointments.