CONCEPTUALIZING THE SPECIAL NEEDS COMMUNITY THERAPY FROM THREE MAIN ECOSYSTEMIC MODELS

Boon Hock Lim, Kok Hwee Chia

Abstract


The authors  of this paper have coined the term special needs community therapists to describe this unique group of special needs professionals involved in a participatory community-based trans-disciplinary treatment (involving intervention, rehabilitation and/or management) that caters to short-term (acute cases) and long-term (chronic cases) intellectual and developmental disabilities done within a residential context, where the clients (i.e., these individuals are treated as customers who need specialized therapy services) and the therapists live and work together. Community therapy for people with special needs can be provided via two main management systems – clinically based case management (institution-centered) and/or person-centered care management (client-centered) – and several different service models such as standard community treatment with high client-therapist ratios and intensive community treatment where the emphasis is on community involvement and lower client-therapist ratios.

 

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Keywords


community therapy, intellectual and developmental disability, model of disability, special needs, therapeutic community

References


Chia, K.H. (2017). Universal design for therapeutic community living and working. Paper presented at the Forum on Person-centered Care Management and Communal Living: A Proposed Model for Special Needs Community Home, 11 March, at the Salvation Army Hope Haven, Bandar Hilir, Melaka.

Chia, K.H. (2008). Educating the whole child in a child with special needs: What we know and understand and what we can do. ASCD Review, 14, 25-31.

Ng, A.G.T., & Chia, K.H. (2009). Learning inside and outside classroom: A bio-ecological model. ASCD Review, 15, 59-64.

Lim, B.H. (2017). Introduction and background of special needs community therapy. Paper presented at the Forum on Person-centered Care Management and Communal Living: A Proposed Model for Special Needs Community Home, 11 March, at the Salvation Army Hope Haven, Bandar Hilir, Melaka.

Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (2017). Models of disability. Retrieved [online] from: http://www.copower.org/leadership/models-of-disability.

Pierangelo, R., & Giuliani, G. (2007). The educator’s diagnostic manual of disabilities and disorders (EDM). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Wykes, T., Leese, M., Taylor, R., & Phelan, M. (1998). Effects of community services on disability and symptoms: PRiSM Psychosis Study 4. British Journal of Psychiatry, 173, 385-390.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejse.v0i0.631

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