Social services for people with disabilities have undergone substantial changes over time, in particular in the past two decades. Whilst lack of affordable and appropriate housing is a barrier to community living for many people with disabilities, it is only one part of the jigsaw. This book traces some of these changes, in particular related to living situation and support available, in a range of different countries and considers the factors that have influenced these changes. This book considers other aspects of what is needed to bring about real change in the lives of all people with disabilities.

Die Beiträge in diesem Buch werfen ein kritisches Licht auf die Ausgestaltung, Verhandlung und Schaffung inklusiver Bedingungen. Die Autor*innen analysieren politische Programme und reflektieren über deren inklusive oder exklusive Auswirkungen in europäischen und außereuropäischen Kontexten. Trotz dieser globalen Effekte, die durch überlokal getroffene Entscheidungen zustande kommen und die Handlungsspielräume vor Ort beeinflussen, betonen viele Beiträge die maßgebliche Rolle der kommunalen Ebene für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung von Inklusion.

A refreshing book that can hold the reader's interest throughout. Quality of Life and Disability should be a compulsory text for all students in the disability field and would make a useful one for experienced practitioners including social workers.' - Australian Social Work 'Among the recent proliferation of books on quality of life, this is a standout! Not only is Quality of Life and Disability: An Approach for Community Practitioners placed squarely in the disability field, but it has an applied emphasis that is rare for a topic that so abounds in vague and often conflicting theories and terminologies. Rather than burdening the reader with the conceptual conundrums of a construct as ambitious as whole of life quality, Brown and Brown dive into the real life issues. This quality of life text will appeal to many practitioners in the disability field. A welcome addition to the bookshelves of many practitioners.' - Paul Bramston, University of Southern Queensland, Australia 'Excellent guide demonstrating to practitioners, not only what they have to do to increase the quality of life of the people they look after, but also how they should start doing it.' - Wspolne Tematy 'A remarkably rich mixture of experience, guidance and insight into the determination of people's quality of life, and into ways in which a wide variety of care staff, managers and policy-makers can understand and respond to disabled people's wants and needs.' - Care and Health magazine 'One of the most refreshing approaches in the contemporary literature on quality of life and disability. The authors are to be congratulated for the very user friendly way the book has been designed.' - Trevor R. Parmenter, University of Sydney 'This book reflects the authors' extensive experience and admirable insight as they bring quality of life ideas closest to those who are in the best position to apply them - the practitioners. Useful, stimulating and well written.' - Robert L. Schalock, Hastings College, Nebraska 'The authors weave their text seamlessly, reminding us at every turn that quality of life varies across individuals, cultures and time... tightly-structured and practical.' - Patricia Noonan Walsh, University College, Dublin 'This excellent book is a valuable contribution to training literature in the field of community rehabilitation.' - Mitchell Clark, Mount Royal College, Calgary, Canada Quality of life - physical, psychological and environmental well-being - is a crucial consideration for professionals working with people with a disability. The authors of this practical book apply ideas about quality of life to the field of disability to assist front-line professionals, managers and policy-makers in effective service provision. They examine the historical context of the concept of quality of life and discuss the application of quality of life in the daily lives of people who have disabilities. Using recent studies to show how the development of quality of life approaches have led to changes in rehabilitation, and how an understanding of the issue can inform practice in assessment, intervention, management and policy, this is an indispensable book for all practitioners and managers working with people with disabilities.

This review is part of a series of reports, Closing the Quality Gap: Revisiting the State of the Science, commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The series provides a critical analysis of existing literature on quality improvement strategies and issues for topics identified by the 2003 Institute of Medicine report Priority Areas for National Action: Transforming Health Care Quality.1 As part of its charge to continuously assess progress toward quality and to update the list of priority areas, AHRQ identified people with disabilities as a priority population. Health care for people with disabilities can present special challenges. For example, medical problems can be exacerbated or complicated by the presence of other medical, psychological, economic, and social problems. Likewise, the management of medical problems can be complicated by disability. Thus, optimal care requires coordination of services from various sectors to maximize the function and quality of life of a person with a disability. Since the care outcomes of function, quality of life, and community integration are interdependent, service coordination may need to span the spectrums of both care and support services (e.g., medical care and schools or social agencies). Coordination of care, with attention to the intersection of medical and social services, is congruent with recent policy attention on integrated care and medical homes. This review examines how health care outcomes have been assessed for people with disabilities. Our report seeks to improve shared understanding among a broad audience of researchers, clinicians, and policymakers with varied exposure to disability outcomes or quality improvement research. We begin by discussing outcome measurement issues and exploring conceptual frameworks for thinking about measuring outcomes for research and quality improvement efforts. We examine the diverse perspectives that researchers grounded in different fields bring to bear on what and how to measure. As with all frameworks that deal with complex concepts, the categories, paradigms, or classes we present are at best "ideal types" rather than simple designations with clean boundaries. Our Key Questions (KQs) focus on the quality assessment component of quality improvement. Using the levels-of-analysis framework, we examined outcome measures for medical care and care coordination for people with disabilities, with an emphasis on outcome measures at the level of the individual rather than the population. Key questions include: KQ1. How are outcomes assessed for people with disabilities living in the community in terms of basic medical service needs? KQ1a. What general population outcomes have been validated on and/or adjusted to accommodate disabled populations? KQ1b. What types of modifiers or case-mix adjusters have been used with the general population outcomes to recognize the special circumstances of people with disabilities? KQ1c. What are key parameters for measuring processes related to basic service care access for people with disabilities? KQ2. What measures have been used to assess effectiveness of care for people with disabilities living in the community in the context of coordination among health providers? KQ3. What measures have been used to assess effectiveness of care for people with disabilities living in the community in the context of coordination between community organizations and health providers?