Abstract
Parents’ and staff perceptions of their individual programming team (IPT) experiences were investigated. Questionnaires were completed by 103 staff and 76 parents of clients who attend a day training and residential agency for persons with mental handicaps. Generally, respondents felt part of their respective teams, and felt that their comments and suggestions were valued, but displayed mixed feelings over whether or not roles were well-defined. In terms of conference-specific participation, respondents indicated that conferences were useful, neither too formal nor jargon-filled, and had equal participation from team members, but that some conference events were not understood by all team members. Parents and staff held similar feelings toward role definitions, toward the technicalness of language at the conferences, and toward conference utility, formality and completeness. Differences of opinion for the two groups arose with respect to team cohesiveness, as well as for the comprehensibility and participatory equality at conferences. In general, results were inconsistent with previous findings. Correlations revealed that perceived equality of conference participation was unrelated to either of the general participation measures, suggesting that respondents’ conceptions of IPT membership extend beyond the conference setting. Suggestions for future action are for a clarification of the role of parents as team members and studying the effects of IPTs.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.