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"Not just a new house": The complexities of undoing institutional practices and identities in transitions to community living

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posted on 2025-05-09, 04:40 authored by Amanda Howard, Louise JohnstonLouise Johnston, Emma Tseris, Pam Joseph
While scholarship regarding the promises and challenges of deinstitutionalisation is expansive, less is known about deinstitutionalisation within the context of contemporary neoliberal disability policy frameworks. This article reports on a study exploring recent transitions from institutional to community living within the context of the highly contested National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia. The perspectives of family members and staff within disability services reveal diverse understandings of the transition. Thematic analysis identified multiple complexities, including hope simultaneously experienced alongside grief and loss, and the non-linear processes involved in taking on new roles and identities. The study demonstrates that deinstitutionalisation is not constituted merely by a physical re-location and that undoing institutional practices requires ongoing attention and resources. Significant concerns raised by participants relating to the impacts of privatisation, fragmented services and a casualised workforce disrupt simplistic thinking about the inevitability of social inclusion through deinstitutionalisation, particularly within neoliberal policy settings.

History

Journal title

Australian Journal of Social Issues

Volume

59

Issue

4

Pagination

922-939

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons

Language

  • en, English

College/Research Centre

College of Human and Social Futures

School

School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences

Rights statement

"© 2024 The Authors. Australian Journal of Social Issues published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian Social Policy Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made."

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