Community Care and Inclusion for People with an Intellectual Disability

“Can we be sure that the policy of ‘care in the community’ hasn’t led to care in isolation? In the search for independent living, have we lost the social and shared experience of living together? Has this emphasis on independent living merely led to greater exclusion? Increasingly, I feel that, in many cases, ‘care’ has become something done to someone, not done with them.” —Dame Anne Begg

Community care is a concept that, for four decades, has shaped government policy, provision, and practice for people with an intellectual disability. Standing in contrast to institutional care, which held sway for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, community care is often presented in simplistic ways which need to be challenged and rebalanced.

The essays in this varied collection are multidisciplinary and bring the widest perspective to this controversial and elusive yet highly influential concept. They examine the barriers that people with an intellectual disability face, including access to housing, work, healthcare, and online resources. They assess the practice of community care and advocate for far-reaching changes to philosophies and the quality of care services. They offer insightful comparative studies from around the world, including from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Bhutan.

Contributors include Robin Dunbar, Robert Cummins, Susan Balandin, Dan McKanan, Bryan Dague, Michael Kendrick, Simon Jarrett, Tho Na Vinh, Birgit Mirfin-Voitch, and more.