Social inclusion: life after ‘day services’

Traditionally, participation in the local community has been considered a crucial component of community living for people with learning disabilities. Highlighted in Valuing People (DH, 2001) and in Valuing People Now (DH, 2007), this concept ‐ now appearing as ‘inclusion’ ‐ has retained its prominence, and is an important area for service development and monitoring. Monitoring of community activities was undertaken pre‐ and post‐closure of two small day service facilities. The findings indicate that for this group of people (generally older with higher support needs) the closure of the day service facilities did not, overall, result in a significant increase in community activities. The availability of the time that the person had previously spent in specialist day services was not, by and large, used to develop social inclusion. Even though, for some individuals, some gains were recorded, overall these gains were considered a poor return for the hours released from the closure of the day service facilities.