Housing Connection of Clark County
Supporting the mission of the Clark County MRDD Board
Emphasizing the Positive in People
In recent decades the support of persons with DD has seen a major transformation. Prior to this change, the model of care was a medical one: if you showed a cognitive deficit to a certain degree, society viewed you as “sick.” Accordingly, the reflex of professionals was to consign most individuals to institutional care.
The modern model focuses primarily not on people’s deficits but on their capabilities: what you can do is more important than what you can’t do as well as others. Starting from this simple truth, the DD profession has taken a second look at the people in their care. The result has been a dramatic shift from institutional care to a community-based experience that promotes the maximum independence of each individual. Within this model, persons with DD assume a greater degree of responsibility for their daily lives. With proper support, they participate in the everyday challenges and satisfactions of independent living—things that we all take for granted, such as paying the monthly rent, decorating and tidying one’s personal living space, pitching in on household chores, and the like. And they do so not within a confined environment in which everyone looks like them but in ordinary neighborhoods with all their diversity of people.
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