A colleague recently posted a question on a LinkedIn personalisation forum about whether there is a future for building-based services.
I think we are too simplistic when we come to make decisions about building based services, particulalry when it comes to whether to keep or close them. Such services actually have three distinct parts to them, and we need to make at least three separate decisions about them:
1. There is the building, which could be used in all kinds of ways by all kinds of people, including some of the people who currently use it, but also others in the community.
2. There is a set of services, some of which may be excellent, others less so. Some may be valued by some, but not all, of the current and potential users. Some may be best provided in the current building, others better provided elsewhere.
3. There is a set of relationships, some of which may be lifelong.
It is these relationships which are most often overlooked in decision making. This is why there are supermarket cafes which have become de facto day centres for people who are bored and lonely and missing their friends. People should have choices over their relationships. Day centres and the like reduce those choices by lumping everyone together, but so do approaches which assume that everyone is always best off doing everything on their own, or in ‘the community’, particularly when the community proves hard to find, or not very interested in them. There is often a lot of work needed on finding and forming people’s networks and communities, not just a ready-made community out there for people to slot neatly into.
People who use services and potential service users, and their families, should all have a say in planning to maintain and develop all three aspects of existing services, not just the most obvious aspects of them.
Escaping the invisible asylum 