This talk by Lucy Hurst-Brown from BBC Radio 4's, Four Thought series discusses the institutionalization of people with disabilities, including young people, and its effects. In the segment, Hurst-Brown shares personal experiences from her work with people with learning disabilities and the positive changes many experienced as a result of deinstitutionalization and community reintegration efforts.
However, Hurst-Brown also highlights many of the ways in which people with disabilities are still segregated from communities and from society. There are over 3,000 people with disabilities "locked up" in treatment units in the UK, she says. Those who do live in the community are still isolated and "invisible.". When asked what it was that they needed in order to feel more integrated and visible in society, many of the people she worked with responded that they need more interaction with all members of the community. They wanted relationships and friendships with people beyond their own families and the people who are paid to care for them. "To put simply, they told us 'we are lonely.'" Hurst-Brown wonders whether this form of segregated community living has traded one form of institutionalization for another.