The development of community care for people with learning difficulties 1913 to 1946

This article explores from an historical perspective the emerging debates on the similarities and differences between community care and institutional care. While institutional care has been widely condemned, community care has been welcomed as offering greater opportunities for adults who have long term care needs. We argue, however, that it is more helpful to regard institutional and community care as a continuum, and draw on our ongoing research into the history of community care for people with learning difficulties to show that community care has a longer history than has been widely assumed, and that some forms of community care were as much motivated by a desire to control as they were by a wish to provide care. The article ends with some consideration of the relevance of such historical studies for modern understandings of community care.

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