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Community Attitudes toward Community Placement of Mentally Retarded Persons

1984; Academic Press; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0074-7750(08)60249-9

2213-7483

Cynthia M. Okolo, Samuel L. Guskin,

Healthcare Decision-Making and Restraints

This chapter explores the possibility of vociferous community members irrationally attacking proposals for humane, normal appearing residences for retarded persons in their neighborhood, thereby driving these unhappy persons back to bedlam like state hospitals. The community attitudes toward community placement of mentally retarded persons appear to be based on a core set of assumptions. First, it is assumed that the most appropriate residential placement is generally in the normal community, which to most professionals suggests a home and neighborhood much like the place in which they choose to live. A second assumption is that placement in large, isolated institutions is the result of hostile community attitudes toward the mentally retarded and that these same attitudes are a major source of the problems that have arisen in trying to establish small “community residential facilities” (CRFs) for mentally retarded persons. Third, it is assumed that community resistance is irrational and unrealistic and that if community members only knew the truth about the retarded and CRFs, they would be supportive. Finally, it is assumed that verbally expressed attitudes relate to overt behavior, for example, resistance to CRFs.