Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

119In concert with the capacity for contemporary institutions to maintain aninstitutionalised accommodation presence, or to reinstitutionalise, it is worthnoting the inherent, rationalist capacity of institutions to have theiraccommodation policies (as well as other policies) dictated to by levels ofgovernment expenditure for the disability and welfare sectors. In a number ofcountries in the 1980s, including the United Kingdom, the United States andAustralia, the trend towards the deinstitutionalisation of welfare-related serviceswas stimulated by restrictions to government funding. 331This raises thepossibility that if governments reduce welfare-related expenditures theninstitutional accommodation could reassert itself as an institutional policy.Economic pragmatism can easily override disability-related idealism andprinciple. As Parmenter notes,There is, therefore, an inherent danger that an institutionallegacy may live on, especially as the effective communityintegration of people with intellectual disability has yet to befully realized in those countries that enthusiasticallyembraced deinstitutionalization. 3323.2.4 Mini-InstitutionsIn the discussion of ‘The Institutional Remnant,’ an example was citedand critiqued of an institution seeking what it claims to be a deinstitutionalised‘village’ plan, even though it involves accommodating large numbers of peoplewith intellectual disability on its central institutional site. This amounts to a formof institutional consolidation or reinstitutionalisation.At the same time the number of institution-initiated communityaccommodation options for people with disabilities, including those withintellectual disability, in Adelaide, is rising. However, whilst these optionsrepresent a geographic movement in accommodation services away from theinstitutional hub they do not represent a complete departure from institutionalaccommodation. Indeed, they can be regarded as a form of ‘mini-institution.’ 333 Itcan be claimed that a growing number of accommodation sites for people withdisabilities are being constructed across the metropolitan areas by disability331 Parmenter, Trevor. "Intellectual Disabilities – Quo Vadis?" In Handbook of DisabilityStudies, edited by Gary Albrecht, Katherine Seelman and Michael Bury, 267-96. (ThousandOaks: Sage Publications, 2001), 279.332 ibid.333 Ziegler, Changing Lives, 4.