Category: English

End-of-year reading and listening recommendations

As many do at the end of a year, I also shared some reading and listening recommendations from 2021. 🕵️‍♀️ This series of Investigate Europe articles on private money in old people care is definitely worth the time of anyone interested in social services. 🔥 Inclusion Dialogue podcast is always very interesting to get new […]

2021 at Inclusion Europe, and related news

Bringing you an overview of news, reports, policies covered in Include newsletter this year. Subscribe here not to miss anything next time around. * And a bit of other stuff, too. Oh, and this was 2020 by the way. Hello. I hope you find this a useful reminder of some things that happened this year. When it’s […]

Better job opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities

Soufiane El Amrani and Milan Šveřepa wrote an article about employment, published in Dutch here. Below is an English version: „As a person with intellectual disabilities I think it is important for all people with intellectual disabilities to have a job like everyone else,“ says Soufiane El Amrani, self-advocacy and easy-to-read officer at Inclusion Europe. „Having a job […]

Build relationships, not houses

Last 2 days have been about learning how supporting living works in Greece, and how to improve it and make it available to many more people. It was a conference in Athens, held by Estia to mark 10 years of providing supported living services. They kindly invited me to talk about support for independent living and inclusion to […]

Recommendations for Polish deinstitutionalisation strategy

Polskie Forum Osób z Niepełnosprawnościami organised a conference called “We have the right to live independently. We cannot wait any longer”, and I was invited to speak during a panel about the Polish deinstitutionalisation strategy and “whether we have to wait until 2030?” I offered suggestions for deinstitutionalisation: Prevent institutionalisation of those living in the […]

Deinstitutionalisation and families

Today I spoke during a EESC hearing about challenges of the transition from institutional to community-based support for persons with disabilities and the role of families as their carers. I talked about priorities in deinstitutionalisation, one of which must be making the changes work for people with complex support needs too. They are often left […]

Institutionalisation of old people in Czechia

Forum for human rights, Validity launch of report on institutionalisation of old people, September 2021. My remarks:   Massive institutionalisation of older people demonstrates the failure of policy when it comes to securing support and care. It stems from lack of understanding how support and care should and can be provided. And it is based […]

The Development, Conceptualisation and Implementation of Quality in Disability Support Services

I was honoured to have been interviewed for a book on deinstitutionalisation, community-based services and inclusion of people with disabilities. About the book “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 […]