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Promoting choice and control in residential services for people with learning disabilities

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journal contribution
posted on 2009-11-03, 13:32 authored by W.M.L. Finlay, Chris Walton, Charles Antaki
This paper discusses the gap between policy goals and practice in residential services for people with learning disabilities. Drawing on a nine month ethnographic study of three residential services, it outlines a range of obstacles to the promotion of choice and control that were routinely observed in the culture and working practices of the services. Issues discussed include conflicting service values and agendas, inspection regimes, an attention to the bigger decisions in a person's life when empowerment could more quickly and effectively be promoted at the level of everyday practice, problems of communication and interpretation and the pervasiveness of teaching. We offer a range of suggestions as to how these obstacles might be tackled

Funding

The research for this article was funded by ESRC grant number RES-148-25-0002

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Citation

FINLAY, W.M.L., WALTON, C. and ANTAKI, C., 2008. Promoting choice and control in residential services for people with learning disabilities. Disability & Society, 23(4), pp. 349-360.

Publisher

© Taylor and Francis

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2008

Notes

This article was published in the journal, Disability & Society [© Taylor & Francis]. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687590802038860

ISSN

0968-7599

Language

  • en