Community Living

O’Brien, Thesing, Tuck and Capie (2001) state that people, irrespective of their degree of disability, are sure to do better in the community on most measures and do no worse when it comes to challenging behaviours. Improvement comes in areas of increasing independence, engaging in meaningful activities and creating social relationships. There is a high predominance of evi­dence that individuals moving from institutional to community settings consistently develop their daily living skills to a higher level than their matched peers who remain institutionalized or that they themselves had developed prior to leaving the institutional settings (Lakin, Larson & Kim, 2011). Although community living seems to afford increases in the quality of life for individuals, there is still much more room for improvement within community residential services. These improvements can be addressed through, according to Fujiura (2006) systematic  training approaches that teach staff and family members the attitudes and competencies required for people with intellectual or mental illnesses to be manage safely and as independent as possible in the community. As Fujiura (2006) suggests, “the community must do much better” (p. 374).

References:

Fujiura, G.T. (2006). Lessons drawn from the critique of the Hissom closure evaluation. Mental Retardation,44(5), 372-375.

Lakin, C., Larson, S., & Kim, S. (2011). The Effects of Community vs. Institutional Living on the Daily Living Skills of Persons with Developmental Disabilities. Evidence-based policy brief. Retrieved from http://www.evidence-basedpolicy.org/docs/evidence-based_policy.pdf

Lemay, R. (2009). Deinstitutionalisation of people with developmental disabilities: A review of the literature. Canadian journal of community mental health, 28(1), 181-194.

O’Brien, P., Thesing, A., Tuck, B., & Capie, A. (2001). Perceptions of change, advantage and quality of life for people with intellectual disability who left a long stay institution to live in the community. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 26(1), 67-82.