Adult Day Services and Social Inclusion

Edited
by Chris Clark.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
£15.95
ISBN 1 85302 887

Adult Day Services… is a helpful
collection which aims to bring readers up to date on how day
services for adult users are modernising by focusing on social
inclusion. The very concept of day services is rapidly expanding,
as this volume makes clear – focusing now on person-centred
planning and home-based activities – while the long familiar “day
centre” heads for obsolescence.

The contributors focus on older people, adults
with mental health problems and people with learning difficulties,
while services for physical disability are not covered. Familiar
themes emerge, such as the impact of community care policies from
the early 1990s, the lack of research on day service outcomes, and
the inability of social inclusion policies, as defined by
government, to reach marginalised users. The book contains solid
critiques of work as the pathway to inclusion with a refreshing
diversity of opinion over the impact of supported employment
schemes.

This is, at points, an uneven collection, with
some contributors reaching big conclusions from small examples. The
emphasis on individual planning also means that neighbourhood
development work is ignored.

John Pierson is the author of
Tackling Social Exclusion (Routledge/Community
Care, 2001) and co-editor of Rebuilding Community
(Palgrave, 2001)