Mental Handicap and Community Care: A Study of Mentally Handicapped People in Sheffield

The mentally handicapped are people who need help and care for the whole of their lives. First published in 1973, Mental Handicap and Community Care examines that the care given by the official services of the welfare state can only hope to be effective when they link in with support and are supported by the informal caring that goes on throughout the society. A detailed analysis of the files of all mentally handicapped known to the Mental Health Service of a major industrial city (Sheffield) shows what factors were associated with admission to hospital. Visits to fifty-four families with a severely handicapped adult at home are described and analyzed providing, often in the words of the parents, a vivid picture of the sort of life such families face. The various ways in which relatives, friends, and neighbours helped these families are examined. The author’s research leads him to make concrete suggestions about the way in which the total pattern of official services for the mentally handicapped might be integrated effectively with existing patterns of family care and informal support.