What Can We Count On To Make and Keep People Safe? Perspectives on Creating Effective Safeguards for People with Developmental Disabilities. [Selections from Background Papers and Discussions with Participants in the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Planning Council Annual Retreat.]

This monograph presents excerpts from discussions with participants in the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Planning Council 1990 retreat, which focused on the creation of effective safeguards for people with developmental disabilities. The discussions note: the increased vulnerability of such people to neglect, abuse, and mistreatment; the shortcomings of unregulated relationships between people with disabilities and their caretakers; and the limitations of systematic efforts to keep people safe through professional, bureaucratic methods. David B. Schwartz in "Quality Assurance in the Asylum" looks at historical aspects of this question. The discussion first focuses on identifying what makes people vulnerable (e.g., lack of power, isolation, lack of alternatives, poverty). Next the contrasting approaches of administrative regulation and related legal advocacy versus lifesharing and other personal commitments are analyzed in terms of their contributions, limits, costs, and effectiveness. Covered next are strategies for increasing safety (such as supporting the contribution of families and friends) and options for actions that make families more powerful, reduce isolation, demonstrate effectiveness, yet minimize the costs of regulation. (DB)