Abstract
The closure of the old “mental handicap” hospitals in the UK has opened up opportunities to improve the lives of institutionalized people moving to campus group homes, and group and other homes in the community. To examine the aftereffects of moves from institutions to small group homes among adults with challenging behaviors, the authors undertook a study designed to help understand the post-deinstitutionalization experiences and needs of a group of 20 men with severe intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviors who previously resided in a hospital’s “locked ward.” Ethnographic methods were used, involving participant observation in the original residence and, later, in their new homes. It was found that the men’s lives had improved in material terms after taking up residence in their new homes, but there were limitations on other significant changes in their lives. The men still experienced social exclusion and denial of individual identity and autonomy, and there appeared to be few fundamental changes in professional and social attitudes toward them. Despite wide acknowledgment of the unacceptable treatment of people living in institutions, the authors conclude that there is evidence that the individual human and civil rights of some adults with intellectual disabilities continue to be ignored even after entry back into the community.