Comparative Policy & Practice

Mission Statement

The Special Interest Research Group on Comparative Policy and Practice exists to further the planning, coordinating and conducting of activities relevant to all aspects of comparative policy and practice in the field of intellectual disabilities. Its mission is to

  1. Provide a focus for the worldwide exchange and dissemination of research comparing policy and practice in intellectual disability.
  2. Promote cross-national, multidisciplinary collaboration in comparative policy and practice, with the aim of improving the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, their families and carers, throughout the world.
  3. Serve as a medium for deliberation, exchange of ideas, knowledge, skills and experience and for compilation, publication and dissemination of information about comparative policy and practice in intellectual disability.

Bylaws

The bylaws of the Comparative Policy and Practice SIRG can be viewed at this link: Bylaws

Survey on the Impact of Covid 19 on Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Caregivers

The Comparative Policy and Practice SIRG led a team of 26 researchers to conduct an anonymous online survey on the impact of COVID19 on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers. The study protocol and study findings from 3,745 participants are openly published by the Health Research Board and can be accessed in full here https://hrbopenresearch.org/collections/coronavirus (type COVID-19 IDD into the search box on the right of the page). The curated dataset, data dictionary and other documentation are openly published on the Open Science Framework and can be accessed here https://osf.io/gk2vf/ Our group encourages others to access this dataset for secondary data analysis. Further detail on the collaborators and a collection of infographics on the findings can be found here https://www.ucd.ie/psychology/ucdcentrefordisabilitystudies/ourresearch/

Documents and Publications

Comparative Policy and Practice Research on Health Systems
The Comparative Policy and Practice Special Interest Research Group has collaborated with IASSIDD’s Health Issues Special Interest Research Group to produce a Special Edition of the Journal of Comparative Policy and Practice. This Special Edition provides a series of country profiles documenting how health systems across the globe provide, or not, for people with intellectual disabilities. The Special Edition concludes with a synthesis of these findings. The Special Edition is due January 2024. The journal website can be found here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17411130

Comparative Policy and Practice Research on COVID-19
Christine Linehan with members of the Special Interest Research Group on Comparative Policy and Practice received funding from the Irish Government to conduct research exploring family members’ and paid staff’s perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 on individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers.
The protocol for this research can be found on open access here https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/3-39
The final paper describing the findings from this research can be found on open access here https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/5-27
The anonymised dataset is available for download on the Open Science Framework here https://osf.io/gk2vf/

Deinstitutionalisation and community living
-Jim Mansell and Julie Beadle-Brown with members of the Special Interest Research Group on Comparative Policy and Practice

Membership

All members of the IASSIDD are eligible to join the CPP-SIRG. People interested in joining the SIRG are invited to contact Julie Beadle-Brown at the address below.

Contact
Julie Beadle-Brown
Tizard Centre, University of Kent at Canterbury, Woodlands, Giles Lane, Canterbury CT2 7LR, UK
Email J.D.Beadle-Brown@kent.ac.uk

Events

2022

International perspectives on supported decision making

The CPP SIRG is hosting a session as part of the 2022 IASSIDD Virtual Conference.

 

This webinar brings together key socio-legal researchers to discuss the varying international progress of law reform to recognise supported decision making and highlight the complexities of practice and policy change. Through this review of progress to further supported decision making, the discussion will draw out issues common to all groups of people with cognitive disability and those unique to people with intellectual disability.

Chairing by Professor Christine Bigby who has led a multi-disciplinary program of research about the policy and practice of supported decision making at the Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University, in Australia.

  • Professor Terry Carney, Emeritus Professor of Law from the University of Sydney:
    ‘Where does supported decision making sit in relation to existing services, guardianship and other arrangements?’
  • Associate Professor Shih-Ning Then, Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology:
    ‘Supported decision-making: Legal reform and practice.’
  • Prof Christine Bigby, Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University:
    ‘Implementing the La Trobe Support for Decision Making Practice Framework in different settings.’

2019

The CPP SIRG has received a high number of abstracts for IASSIDD’s 16th World Congress which takes place in Glasgow, Scotland from 6-9th August 2019. CPP will host its General Meeting during the Congress and welcomes all, whether or not you are CPP members. Details of CPP presentations, roundtables and symposium will be released in due course when the programme is finalized. We look forward to meeting you there.

2018

IASSIDD’s 5th European Congress was hosted in Athens, Greece from 17-20th July 2018. A total of 68 abstracts were approved in the CPP track which examined a wide range of issues including service systems, enhancing professional practice, adult life, family supports, ageing supports, skill developments, decision making, autism spectrum disorder, coercive methods, nursing practices and deinstitutionalisation.  Roundtables were delivered on practice leadership, facilitating the development of community-based practices in Europe, and challenging in mapping the situation of people with ID in Europe.

Later in the year, a Discussions in Disability Seminar was hosted on ‘Assisted Decision Making’, in Dublin on 27 August 2018 in a collaboration between IASSIDD CPP and the UCD Centre for Disability Studies. This seminar explored developments in assisted decision making, advocacy for those with complex support needs and legislation on capacity, safeguarding and consent.

2017

CPP SIRG contributed to IASSIDD’s Health SIRG conference hosted in Belfast from 19-20 June 2017, entitled “Bridging the gap: from evidence to improved health for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities”.  The CPP element addressed measures to improve access to health for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

2016

IASSIDD’s 15th World Congress was hosted in Melbourne, Australia from 15-19 August 2016. CPP abstracts reflected a global reach describing disability services from Azerbaijan, Australia, United States and New Zealand to name a few.  Distinct symposia, taking an in-depth look at key issues in comparative policy and practice focused on people with ID with high support needs, collaborations between research and practice, quality of life outcomes, culture in group homes, personalization and decision making.

Later in the year, CPP hosted a joint roundtable with IASSIDD’s QOL SIRG in Zagreb, Croatia from October 20-21, 2016.  This roundtable included presentations on Disability Issues in the Community, Support for People with Disabilities, Family Quality of Life and Measurement Issues in Quality of Life. Linked with an IASSIDD Academy event on Inclusive Education and Quality of Life across the lifespan, the roundtable aimed to examine issues of policy and practice impacting on individuals’ quality of life.  This roundtable had a particular focus on the movement of services from congregated to community living.

2014

IASSIDD’s 4th European Congress, Pathways to Inclusion, was hosted in Vienna, Austria from 14th – 17th July 2014. The Comparative Policy and Practice SIRG was well represented with 111 abstracts accepted in the Living in the Community track.  Symposia were presented on a range of topics including citizenship, technology, supporting families, support needs, quality of life, self-advocacy, community living, social inclusion. Roundtables were hosted on the role of ideology in service developments and on efforts to enhance social inclusion in the neighbourhood.

2013

Developing community based support for people with intellectual disability: Working in partnership to achieve change
This conference will be organised jointly by the IASSIDD Special Interest Research Group on Comparative Policy and Practice and Charles University Prague as part of the QUALI-TYDES Czech Research Foundation project (No. P407/11).
Conference support and organisation by IASSID and SPMP

  • Date: Friday 15th November 2013 (Please note change of date from the original announcement due to venue restrictions)
  • Venue: Hotel Olsanka, Prague, Czech Republic

SIRG Roundtable Saturday 16th November 2013: The Prague conference will be followed by a Comparative Policy and Practice Special Interest Research group roundtable on Saturday 16th November 09 30 til 1400. The primary purpose of this meeting will be to discuss the content of the papers for the Special Issue on Policies for a Good Life in the Community and to discuss future activities of the SIRG. A brief general meeting will also be held. Further infromation on the programme will be made available here soon.

2012

At the IASSIDD World Congress in Halifax, we had a joint discussion with members of the Quality of Life and Ageing SIRGs. This discussion focused on draft papers prepared and circulated prior to the event by Ivan Brown, Chris Bigby, David Felce and Julie Beadle-Brown and related to the Policies for a good Life in the Community programme of work that had initially been agreed in Rome and then advance at a symposium discussion held in Iceland at the NNDR Conference.  The papers focused on:

  • Rekindling the ideological drive
  • Establishing the evidence base for models of community based provision
  • Mapping the situation for people with Intellectual Disabilities: building on the DECLOC report,
  • Unraveling the cost effectiveness discourse

Prior to the event, SIRG members helped to complete templates for their countries about the situation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Attendance at the discussion was good and the discussion was very fruitful and will be used to revise the papers with the aim of compiling a special issue for a journal.

Executive

Chair
Christine Linehan
UCD Centre for Disability Studies, University College Dublin
Dublin
Christine.linehan@ucd.ie

Vice chair
Chris Bigby
School of Allied Health, La Trobe University
Australia
C.Bigby@latrobe.edu.au

Secretary/Treasurer
Valerie Bradley
Human Services Research Institute
United States
vbradley@hsri.org

Past-Chair
Michael Brown
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queens University Belfast
United Kingdom
m.j.brown@qub.ac.uk

Membership
Julie Beadle-Brown
Tizard Centre, University of Kent
United Kingdom
J.D.Beadle-Brown@kent.ac.uk

Social Media
Jan Šiška
Faculty of Education, Charles University
Czech Republic
jan.siska@pedf.cuni.cz

Šárka Káňová
Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia
Czech Republic
kanova@kpg.zcu.cz

Website
Jan Šiška
Faculty of Education, Charles University
Czech Republic
jan.siska@pedf.cuni.cz

JPPID Associate Editor
Chris Bigby
School of Allied Health, La Trobe University
Australia
C.Bigby@latrobe.edu.au

Ordinary members

Geraldine Boland
UCD Centre for Disability Studies, University College Dublin
Dublin
geraldine.boland@ucdconnect.ie

Femmianne Bredewold
Institute for Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Humanistic Studies
The Netherlands
F.Bredewold@UvH.nl

Masauso Chirwa
Department of Social Work and Sociology, University of Zambia
Zambia
chirwamas@yahoo.com

Sudesh Mukhopadhyay
Former Chairperson Rehabilitation Council of India &  Head,  Dept of Inclusive Education, NUEPA( now NIEPA, Deemed to be University, New Delhi)
New Dehli
drsudesh.mukhopadhyay@gmail.com

Mary-Ann O’Donovan 
Inclusion Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities School of Education, The University of Dublin Trinity College
Dublin
ODONOVM3@tcd.ie

Flavia Santos 
UCD Centre for Disability Studies, University College Dublin
Dublin
flavia.santos@ucd.ie

Jan Tossebro
Department of Social Work, Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences
Norway
jan.tossebro@ntnu.no

International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD) 

The International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD) is the first and only world-wide group dedicated to the scientific study of intellectual disability.

Founded in 1964 as the International Association for the Scientific Study of Mental Deficiency, IASSIDD is an international, interdisciplinary and scientific non-governmental organization which promotes worldwide research and exchange of information on intellectual disabilities.