Progress on deinstitutionalisation and the development of community living for persons with disabilities in Europe: Are we nearly there?
Abstract
Following the publication of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability, the rights and situation of people with disabilities have once again become a focus of national, European and international policy and advocacy. Mansell et al., (2007) identified that there were over 1million people with disabilities in Europe living in institutions of over 30 places in size and almost 1.4 million in some form of residential care.
This paper reports findings from a review of national and international sources of data on living situation for 27 European countries as of 2019. Although there had been some changes, especially for children and especially in countries where EU structural funds had been used, there were still 1.4 million people living in residential care, with many still for more than 30 people.
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities were those who were most likely to still be in residential services. We consider some of the potential reasons for these findings and discuss what might be needed to really advance deinstitutionalisation.