Close to Home

Active Support is a global phenomenon. Nowadays, one can find evidence of Active Support being implemented in the UK, Ireland, in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, and parts of the USA.

But, did you know that Active Support originated nearly 30 years ago in a small Hampshire town, when a small group of researchers began planning the Andover Project?

Since then, these same researchers and others have described, discussed, filmed, evaluated, analysed, and disseminated Active Support.

In 1988, BILD published a book by David Felce and Sandy Toogood called Close to Home. This book is different to anything else written on Active Support.

It told the story of nine people, all of whom lived for a part of their life in one of England’s first small community homes for people with severe intellectual disability. These were the first individuals ever to benefit from Active Support, before deinstitutionalisation, before normalisation theory, before the five accomplishments, before person-centred planning. A few years ago, the book went out of print and was destined no longer to be available to a broad readership.

ARC is delighted to be able to make the text of the book available for download in PDF. This is what Active Support is all about.

These are the stories behind the research statistics. The issues, ideas and commitment expressed in the lives of those who lived in this early small community home are as fresh and vivid as ever.

Download it NOW!