Review

Simplicity for complex problems

UNLOCKING THE FUTURE: Developing new lifestyles with people who have complex disabilities
Barbara McIntosh and Andrea Whittaker (eds)
King’s Fund, 2000, £15.99

The first thing you notice about this excellent book is that it comes in two versions, which are bound together. Version one is a summary, written in plain, easy-to-read text, with graphics to aid understanding, for people with learning difficulties; version two is your standard written English.

Although the book is aimed at managers, commissioners and providers, version one is designed to be accessible to ‘people who use services and their families’.

The book is, in effect, a comprehensive blueprint for how to move services for people with learning difficulties away from ‘special’ provision to everyday activities in the mainstream of society.

Unlocking the Future is the latest in a series called Changing Days and builds on previous experiences and lessons learnt. It moves from advising on how to establish and maintain contact with ‘people with complex needs’ to ‘ways of achieving more individual lifestyles and the processes that are necessary to create a truly person-centred service that will result in better quality lives for people with complex disabilities’.

Ranging through issues and activities such as education, employment, leisure and transition to adulthood, the book addresses the matters of planning, delivering and developing services, and ‘keeping users central’.

The appendices set out a step-by-step process for moving services from day centres to the community, along with a personal development plan to use with individuals.

It all makes such simple sense, that you wonder why all managers, commissioners and service providers – even in other settings – are not using this process.