The Right to Live in the Community Seminar
Summary of the Seminar conclusions
- Living included in society is a human right of every person. Comprehensive, quality community-based alternatives to institutions must be available and accessible to all people with disabilities, including people with complex dependency needs. It is important to carry out awareness-raising activities among the public, professionals and other target groups, which would emphasize that life in the community is a right of every individual.
- Closure is not the goal - it is a vehicle towards ensuring a better quality of life for people with disabilities. Therefore, instead of speaking about de-institutionalisation, we must speak about community living and developing community capacity for all people.
- The key to the closing of institutions is the development of community-based alternatives. Once community-based services are available and accessible to people with disabilities, individuals can move out of institutions and new admissions into institutions can stop.
- All community-based services must be person-centered. To this end, people with disabilities must be involved in constructive partnerships to shape the delivery of services.
- There is a need for quality monitoring and enforcement of conditions in institutions and community-based services. When evaluating the quality of services, we must look beyond the physical environment and evaluate the quality of life of a person.
- There is a difference between community-living and living in the community. Just living in the community does not guarantee inclusion.
- Activities of user organisations need to be encouraged and supported, to ensure that people with disabilities are involved in all stages of the development and provision of community-based services. It is also important that families of people with disabilities are involved in advocating for the development of community-based alternatives to institutions.
- Closure is a political decision and the importance of advocacy work must not be underestimated. We need to think beyond our national boundaries and also act regionally and internationally. Furthermore, it is important to form partnerships with actors outside the disability movement.
- In order not to make the same mistakes and support each other's efforts, we need to collect and share examples of best practice, as well as instruments facilitating development and provision of community-based services. As a unique European platform focused on the promotion of community living for people with disabilities, it is important that ECCL continues with its activities and receives support from other organisations, as well as the European Commission.
