Community care or independent living?

Abstract

Community care policies, despite their rhetoric about helping people to live independent lives, are based on an ideology of dependency. This means that community care practice - in particular the changes in the Independent Living Fund and the way that statutory services are delivered - often constitutes a barrier to independent living. Research on the experience of receiving personal assistance with daily living activities found that receiving cash to pay for assistance enables disabled people to make the kind of choices in their lives which non- disabled people take for granted. However, there are opportunities within the community care reforms to promote independent living principles and these need to be seized upon by both professionals and disabled people.