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The development of community care for people with learning disabilities 1913 - 1946
- Authors:
- WALMSLEY Jan, ROLPH Sheena
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 21(1), February 2001, pp.59-80.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This article explores from an historical perspective the emerging debates on the similarities and differences between community care and institutional care. While institutional care has been widely condemned, community care has been welcomed as offering greater opportunities for adults who have long term care needs. The article argues, however, that it is more helpful to regard institutional and community care as a continuum, and draw on ongoing research into the history of community care for people with learning difficulties to show that community care has a longer history than has widely been assumed, and that some forms of community care were as much motivated by a desire to control as they were by a wish to provide care. The article ends with some consideration of the relevance of such historical studies for modern understandings of community care.
Community care in perspective: care, control and citizenship
- Editors:
- WELSHMAN John, WALMSLEY Jan, (eds.)
- Publisher:
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 278p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Basingstoke
The book fills a major gap in medical and social history by offering a detailed account of community provision for so called "vulnerable adults", from 1948 in the UK. The book focuses primarily on people with learning difficulties, but offers insights into community care more broadly, particularly through the use of key themes. The book has a contemporary relevance to aspiring and existing practitioners in health and social care because although historical lessons do not provide any kind of blueprint for the future, an understanding of the evolution of community care is of practical help to policy makers and service providers in offering a context for their work.
A quarter-century of normalisation and social role valorization: evolution and impact
- Editors:
- FLYNN Robert J., LEMAY Raymond A.
- Publisher:
- University of Ottawa
- Publication year:
- 1999
- Pagination:
- 583p.,bibliogs.
- Place of publication:
- Ottawa
Traces the evolution and impact of normalisation and social role valorisation over the last 25 years. Includes sections on: critical perspectives; links between normalisation, social role valorisation, social science theory and empirical research; dissemination through education and training; international impacts; personal impacts; and the future.
Advocating for people with learning difficulties
- Author:
- MELLET Redmond
- Journal article citation:
- Management Issues in Social Care, 1(5), January 1998, pp.1-5.
- Publisher:
- OLM Systems
Describes the history of understanding and help for people with learning difficulties in the USA and the UK. Highlights issues relating to community care and a need to revisit basic principles.
Mental illness and learning disability since 1850: finding a place for mental disorder in the United Kingdom
- Editors:
- DALE Pamela, MELLING Joseph, (eds.)
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 234p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
This collection of essays provides an assessment of the policies and practices devised to accommodate and manage a wide range of people with disabilities as well as mental illness. The last thirty years have seen many of the Victorian and Edwardian asylums and residential homes closed as alternatives to institutional care have been developed. It is suggested that the abandonment of these institutions and the limits of care in the community have led to public concern about the consequences of some of the policies that have been pursued regarding the care of those with mental disorders. The responsibility of families, neighbourhoods and wider society to care for their members has been the subject of debate in both historical and contemporary contexts. The authors emphasise the complexity of institutional systems: the workhouses, asylums, mental hospitals and hostels, illustrating the influence of medical and legal personnel as well as family members in the care offered to those identified as needing protection. Class relationships, gender and regional variations are revealed as factors which influenced the kind of psychiatric care provided.
Mental retardation in America: a historical reader
- Editors:
- NOLL Steven, TRENT James W., (eds)
- Publisher:
- New York University Press
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 513p.
- Place of publication:
- New York
Beginning with an examination of the early nineteenth century labelling of what is still called in the US mental retardation, as "idiocy," to what we now call developmental, intellectual, or learning disabilities, this book chronicles the history of mental retardation, its treatment and labelling, and its representations and ramifications within the changing economic, social, and political context of America. The book includes essays with authors who approach the problems of developmental, intellectual, or learning disabilities from many differing points of view. This work is divided into five sections, each following in chronological order the major changes in the treatment of people classified as retarded. Exploring historical issues, as well as current public policy concerns, it covers topics ranging from representations of the mentally disabled as social burdens and social menaces; Freudian inspired ideas of adjustment and adaptation; the relationship between community care and institutional treatment; historical events, such as the Buck v. Bell decision, which upheld the opinion on eugenic sterilization; the evolution of the disability rights movement; and the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.
A new movement in an old bureaucracy: the development of self-advocacy in the Czech Republic
- Author:
- SISKA Jan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34(3), September 2006, pp.139-145.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The author describes how self-advocacy has grown in the Czech Republic, and provides an overview of its relatively short history within the broader context of political and administrative change toward community-based services, and the slow process of de-institutionalisation. The development of the country's first self-advocacy group is also described. The author highlights the importance of the systematic support for self-advocacy groups in the Czech Republic.
Outside the asylum
- Authors:
- WRIGHT David, BARTLETT Peter
- Journal article citation:
- Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Care, 2(12), August 1999, pp.404-405.
- Publisher:
- Pavilion
This article provides an abstract of a new history of mental health and learning disabilities care which traces models of community care back to its Victorian and earlier antecedents.
Family, community and the 'idiot' in mid-nineteenth Century North Wales
- Authors:
- HIRST David, MICHAEL Pamela
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 18(2), March 2003, pp.145-163.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
In mid-nineteenth century north Wales, and indeed in Wales generally, 'community care' of persons with learning disabilities aided by the Poor Law survived longer than in England, where institutionalisation in the workhouse or asylum became the norm. This prehistory of community care has been largely unexplored, largely because of the difficulties of obtaining data. After discussing the methodology, and discussing the Lunacy and Poor Law documents used as sources, this paper seeks to advance understanding by using longitudinal histories of individuals with learning disability to explore their varied experiences in the community. It examines the attitudes of officialdom, and the role of family and community, and concludes by suggesting key factors in determining individual life stories included the presence of family, the ability to work, the degree of 'difficulty' or 'dangerousness' they presented.
'A pair of stout shoes and an umbrella': the role of the mental welfare officer in delivering community care in East Anglia: 1946-1970
- Authors:
- ROLPH Sheena, ATKINSON Dorothy, WALMSLEY Jan
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 33(3), April 2003, pp.339-359.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This article describes an oral history research project which explored a little-known aspect of the history of social work: the history of mental welfare officers and their role in community care. We interviewed former MWOs and analysed both private and public documents to explore this history in East Anglia between 1946 and 1970. In the paper we address three themes. In the first place, we argue that MWOs, as well as carrying out their statutory function in overseeing hospital admissions, had a significant role in community care for people with learning difficulties and psychiatric problems. They began to advocate on behalf of clients, often making a case for home support and they supported parents' groups. Increasingly, they carried out case-work and painstaking social work with families. In the second place, we explore the surprising finding that, among MWOs, genericism was not as new a concept in 1970 as many writers have assumed. Finally, we analyse some gender issues that emerged from the research and the way they influenced attitudes to community care held by some MWOs. The paper looks at the gradual development of a profession from one with little consistent training, to one in which specialist education began to be seen as an important aspect of the role of the MWO.