Search results for ‘Subject term:"learning disabilities"’ Sort:
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A step in the right direction: people with learning difficulties moving into the community
- Authors:
- WALKER Carol, RYAN Tony, WALKER Alan
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Care in the Community, 3(4), July 1995, pp.249-259.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
It is more than a decade since the government announced the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) should close the long-stay mental handicap hospitals. The North West Regional Health Authority's (NWRHA) commitment to the resettlement of people with learning difficulties into ordinary housing in the community pre-dated the government's cost-driven initiative. In 1982 the Region Published A Model District Service, a strategy document supported by both the District Health Authorities (DHAs) and the local social services departments, in which it set out a user-centred philosophy for community services for people with learning difficulties. Paper is based on an evaluation of the impact of that strategy, the central part of which was an examination of the experiences of 102 people who moved out of three large mental handicap hospitals between March 1990 and March 1991. The research found that the move into the community offered the people concerned a much improved quality of life, with greater independence and choice in everyday living. However, there is a need to build on this so that people's life experiences are not merely better than those offered by the already discredited institutions, but so that they can become fully integrated and respected members of society.
Services for people with learning difficulties - balancing the interests of users, their families and service providers
- Authors:
- WALKER Carol, WALKER Alan, RYAN Tony
- Journal article citation:
- Social Services Research, 1 1994, 1994, pp.10-19.
- Publisher:
- Social Services Research Group
Looks at the findings of research funded by the North Western Regional Health Authority, which examines the quality of life of 102 people with learning difficulties who moved out of three large long-stay mental handicap hospitals into shared housing in the community. The article focuses on the issues that arise when conducting research with people with learning difficulties and their close family.
Age or disability? Age-based disparities in service provision for older people with intellectual disabilities in Great Britain
- Authors:
- WALKER Alan, WALKER Carol
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 23(1), March 1998, pp.25-39.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This article concentrates on the role of service providers in prescribing artificial limits to the potential of older people with intellectual disabilities. Argues that the key factor in this social creation of dependency is the age discriminatory attitudes held by some service providers and which distinguish between the different British service cultures in provision for older people and those for people with an intellectual disability. Thus the behaviour of care staff and the assumptions implicit in social policies can result in practices which reinforce dependency rather than empowerment.