Not so good, not so bad : an ethnographic study of the lives of former residents of Exon House following deinstitutionalization

Corbett, Allan Francis (1997) Not so good, not so bad : an ethnographic study of the lives of former residents of Exon House following deinstitutionalization. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Deinstitutionalization has been a policy of governments throughout North America for many years. The policies were supported by advocacy groups and by persons who lived in the institutions. The government of Newfoundland closed two institutions, Children's Home in 1983 and Exon House in 1988. The research in this thesis was conducted in an ethnographic model using semi-structured interviews with thirteen former Exon House residents. An important aspect of this research was to allow the voices of the former residents to tell the stories of their lives following deinstitutionalization in Newfoundland. Because normalization was an important driving principle behind deinstitutionalization, it was utilized to aid in the analysis of the data collected. Four major areas were explored, social linkages, personal autonomy, personal satisfaction and self-concept. The findings from the research indicate that the former residents had few friends that were not in paid relationships, they were not satisfied with family relations, there were limited efforts to teach activities that would enhance autonomy, few worked and many had a strong sense of who they were. The analysis of the data strongly suggests a re-focusing of efforts toward the goals of normalization.

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