Home Page Index
This report by Jean Collins, the first of three from VIA's research into progress to move people out of mental handicap hospital, reveals a state of chaos and confusion: funding problems, uncertain leadership, and signs of a disguised renewal of the old institutions. (1992)
Continues the themes in When the Eagles fly, but looks in more detail, through interviews with players in the resettlement game, at the conflicts and mistrust which stand in the way of hospital closure. (1993)
In this final report from the research on resettlement, Jean Collins shows how hospital residents can be helped to find a good life in the community. (1994)
To separate the reality from the rhetoric, VIA took a 'snapshot' of the lives of people with learning difficulties by asking them - or the people who support them - to send in stories about what they happened to be doing on one particular day. With a commentary by Steve Dowson, these stories make a very good introduction to the topic for students and others. (1988)
Jane Hubert's study of people with severe learning difficulties who are receiving medication exposes an appalling combination of incompetent prescribing practices, careless administration of drugs, and inadequate monitoring. (1992)
Robert Perske presents a powerful, often shocking picture of the ways in which the US criminal justice system fails people with learning difficulties. (1991)
This report, based on a survey of ATC and SEC day centres, and mental handicap hospitals, provides a benchmark of the rapid growth of self-advocacy groups during the 1980s. The increase in the number of groups, and some of their achievements, are encouraging news; but there are hints, too, of problems that the groups were beginning to encounter.(1988)
A 'Challenge to Consensus' booklet which fiercely attacks a trend to turn turn self-advocacy into merely "an accessory for fashion-conscious services". (1991)
What kind of images of people with learning difficulties do the newspapers present? VIA found out by collecting every relevant item from any national or local newspaper over a period of three months, and then analysing the results. (1988)
Advertising designed to recruit staff also present images of the service users. Services should be sensitive to these issues; but as this review of advertising discovered, they often aren't. (1988)