Tony Ryan - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Career Development Practitioner/ Certified Career Strategist, Employment workshop Facilitator,

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Papers by Tony Ryan

Health & Social Care in the Community, 2007

It is more than a decade since the government announced that Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) s... more It is more than a decade since the government announced that Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) should close their long-stay mental handicap hospitals. The North West Regional Health Authority's (NWRHA) commitment to the resettlement of people with learning difficulties into ordinary housing in the community pre-dated the government's costdriven initiative. In 1982 the Region published A Model District Service, a strategy document supported by both the District Health Authorities (DHAs) and the local social services departments, in which it set out a user-centred philosophy for community services for people with learning difficulties. This paper is based on an evaluation of the impact of that strategy, the central part of which was an examination of the experiences of 102 people who moved out of three large mental handicap hospitals between March 1990 and March 1991. The research team's primary concern was to obtain information from the people with learning difficulties who had moved into the community. Unstructured interviews were conducted with those with an adequate level of communication, photographs were used to assist those with very limited communication; Observations were made over a period of time of those without any communication skills at all. Interviews were also conducted with the formal care worker in the community and, where there was one, a relative who had meaningful contact with their learning disabled relative. The research found that the move into the community offered the people concerned a much improved quality of life, with greater independence and choice in everyday living. However, there is a need to build on this so that people's life experiences are not merely better than those offered by the already discredited institutions, but so that they can become fully integrated and respected members of society.

Older People with Learning Difficulties Leaving Institutional Care—A Case of Double Jeopardy

Ageing and Society, 1996

People with learning difficulties are now surviving into old age and more and more of them are be... more People with learning difficulties are now surviving into old age and more and more of them are being resettled from long-stay hospitals. The main purpose of this article is to examine some of the key barriers facing, and dilemmas involved in, the provision of community-based services to this newly emerging user group. The findings of some recent field research on older people with learning difficulties who have been resettled into the community are used to illustrate the challenges facing service providers. Particular reference is made to the impact of age discrimination and traditional differences between service specialisms. The article shows that both official definitions of need in old age and the aspirations of the service responses to those needs have been artificially constructed in very narrow terms, especially when compared with the principled approach to service provision for younger people with learning difficulties. In conclusion, therefore, it is argued that the princip...