Community Living: Moving
from Concept to Reality?
Camilla Parker,
Disability & Human Rights Consultant
Partner, Just Equality
3rd May 2013
1
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Community Living: Overview
• Article 19 and the CRPD
• Development of the right to Community Living
• Community Living: what it means and why it
matters (to us all)
• Deinstitutionalisation and Article 19
• Myths and misconceptions
• The role of Structural Funds in future reform
2
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Article 19 Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
• Equal right of disabled people to live in the
community with choices equal to others
• States must take effective and appropriate
measures to facilitate disabled people’s:
• Full enjoyment of this right
• Full inclusion & participation in the community
• Measures taken includes by ensuring:
• Equal opportunity to choose where & with whom
to live
• Access to range of community-support services
• Mainstream services are available on equal basis
(and are responsive to individual needs)
Community Living: a description
‘People with disabilities are able to live in their
local communities as equal citizens, with the
support that they need to participate in every
day life. This includes living in their own homes
or with their families, going to work, going to
school and taking part in community activities’*
*European Coalition for Community Living, Focus on the UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2009
The Right to Community Living (1)
5
UN
CoE
• Persons with disabilities are
members of society and have
the right to remain within their
local communities. They
should receive the support
they need within ordinary
structures of education,
health, employment and
social services. Standard
Rules on the Equalization of
Opportunities for Persons
with Disabilities, (1993)
• European Social Charter
(1996) e.g. Art 15: right of
persons with disabilities to
independence, social
integration & participation in
the life of the community
• Disability Action Plan 20062015 Action line No 8:
Community Living - Focus
on enabling people with
disabilities to live as
independently as possible,
to make choices on how
and where they live
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
The Right to Community Living (2)
• “National policies should help elderly persons continue
to live in their own homes as long as possible, through
the restoration, development and improvement of
homes and their adaptation to the ability of those
persons to gain access to and use them” (CESR, GC
No. 6 1995)
• States to adopt or encourage measures “to enable
elderly persons to remain full members of society for
as long as possible...to enable elderly persons to
choose their life-style freely and to lead independent
lives, in their familiar surroundings as long as they
wish and are able...” (Article 23 Revised European
6
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Social Charter 1996)
Community Living: Why It Matters (1)
• Where we live: having a home
• What we do: work, leisure
• Who we spend time with: personal
relationships, social networks
• Civic engagement: voting, standing
for election, etc
7
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Community Living: Why It Matters (2)
8
• Values each of us as individuals but
recognises our connection with others
• We all need support to realise our
aspirations and fulfil our potential
• Former CoE Commissioner for Human
Rights, Thomas Hammarberg: “Article 19
of the CRPD embodies a positive
philosophy, which is about enabling people
to live their lives to their fullest, within
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
society”
Crucial Importance of Right to
Community Living under Article 19
• Confirms that community living is a human right
• Underpins policy objectives of promoting social inclusion
and challenging discrimination (EU, CoE)
• Highlights gap between rhetoric and reality
• Over 1 million people with disabilities in institutions across
Europe (DECLOC)
• Human rights abuses within institutions
• Institutionalisation not an acceptable form of “care” in 21st
Century – incompatible with right to community living
• EU’s ratification of CRPD: use of Structural Funds to
maintain institutions rather than develop community
based alternatives is contrary to CRPD and EU law (OSF,
The European Union and the Right to Community Living, 2012)
9
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Community Living & Deinstitutionalisation:
Myths and Misconceptions
• Promotes independence NOT isolation: people to be
given support so they can participate in community life
• Not just about the physical environment: the nature
of support is key – does it enable the person “to live the
life that they choose and to be included in their local
community”? (JCHR Implementation of the Right of
Disabled People to Independent Living, 2012)
• Deinstitutionalisation only a factor: “For persons to
have choice and control over their lives they should be,
for example: allowed to vote in elections and stand for
public office; facilitated to work through reasonable
adjustments in the workplace; and allowed to enter
legally binding contracts. (FRA, Just
2012)
10
Equality: Linking Law to Life
Structural Funds – potential catalyst
for positive reform
• “Structural Funds have the potential
to support the development of
quality family-based and communitybased alternatives to institutional
care, and to ensure that these
services are available to all those
who need them” (EU Funds Toolkit
November 2012)
Community Living: References (1)
•
•
•
•
•
12
•
G. Quinn and S. Doyle (2012) United Nations Human Rights Office of the
High Commissioner, Europe Regional Office, Getting a Life: Legal Analysis
of the Current Use and Future Potential of the EU Structural Funds to
Contribute to the Achievement of Article 19 of the UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Open Society Foundations, The European Union and the Right to
Community Living Structural Funds and the European Union’s Obligations
under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (Camilla
Parker and Luke Clements) 2012
Council of Europe, Commissioner on Human Rights, The Right of People
with Disabilities to Live Independently and be Included in the Community,
13th March 2012: https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1917847
House of Lords, House of Commons, Joint Committee on Human Rights
Implementation of the Right of Disabled People to Independent Living,
February 2012
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Community Living: References (1)
•
•
•
•
13
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) Choice and control:
the right to independent living: Experiences of persons with intellectual
disabilities and persons with mental health problems in nine EU Member
States, 2012
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Europe
Regional Office Forgotten Europeans – Forgotten Rights: The Human
Rights of Persons Placed in Institutions (‘Forgotten Europeans – Forgotten
Rights’), OHCHR 2011
European Coalition for Community Living, Wasted Lives: A Focus Report on
how the current use of Structural Funds perpetuates the social exclusion of
disabled people in Central and Eastern Europe by failing to support the
transition from institutional care to community based services, 2010
European Coalition for Community Living Focus on Article 19 of the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2009
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life
Camilla Parker
Partner, Just Equality
camilla@justequality.co.uk
www.justequality.co.uk
14
Just Equality: Linking Law to Life