Planning For Life

Involving Adults with Learning Disabilities in Service Planning

Liam Concannon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780415351560
• eBook ISBN: 9781134265404
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

This book traces the development of services for people with disabilities and discusses how much things have really changed for today's 'service users' since the days of asylums. It also assesses whether the policy of involvement, such as that outlined in Valuing People, is achievable in practice or simply places unrealistic burdens on professionals and service users.Based on findings from original research and interviews, the author argues that involving people with learning disabilities in service planning is difficult to achieve successfully and is currently, to a large extent, tokenistic. This area of challenging practice and emotive debate is brought to life by the voices of service providers, carers and the service users themselves, and illustrates the realities of working with people with learning disabilities. Planning for Life is valuable and informative for students of social work, social care and social policy, and will be enlightening reading for those working with adults with learning disabilities, in policy and in practice.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The historical and social context of care to people with learning disabilities
• 2 The case for citizenship
• 3 Barriers to communication
• 4 Strategies for implementing normalisation and citizenship
• 5 The local authority's interpretation of government strategies
• 6 Group observations
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix A The Research Design and Qualitative Methodology
• Appendix B The Semi-Structured Discussion Schedule
• Bibliography
• Index