A community living experience: Views of people with intellectual disability with extensive support needs, families, and professionals

Abstract

[EN]Background: Despite the benefits of community living for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and extensive support needs, they remain highly institutionalized. Aims: To qualitatively analyze the perceptions of people with ID, including those with extensive support needs, professionals, and family members six months after the implementation of 11 community homes for 47 people in different regions of Spain Methods: Thematic analysis of 77 individual interviews conducted with 13 people with ID, 30 professionals and 34 family members was performed using Nvivo12. Results: Seven themes were found: (1) “the room as I like it”, (2) “sometimes I don’t obey”, (3) “here I do a bit of everything”, (4) “lots of people love me here”, (5) “all thanks to them, who have helped me” (6) “I miss my mom”, and (7) “I’m happy here”. Implications: Transitioning into the community has shown a clear positive change in emotional well-being, opportunities to participate in activities or exercise control over one’s life. Nevertheless, certain restrictions were still present in people’s lives, which significantly limit their right to independent living. While many of these restrictions may disappear, professional practices typical of a medical model can be recreated in services located in the community.