half day workshop

ACTIVE SUPPORT: PROMOTING MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION IN EVERYDAY ACTIVITY AMONG PEOPLE WITH SEVERE INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
Sandy Toogood, University of Wales, Bangor,  United Kingdom and Vaso Totsika, University of Wales, Bangor, United Kingdom

CCIB Room: 215/216

Inactivity is a major issue for many people with severe or profound intellectual impairments living in small community-based group homes.  Reasons for inactivity may include a) low motivation, skill deficits and reliance on practical assistance from staff, b) low expectations and lack of appropriate skills among staff, and c) lack of organization within the household to promote engagement.  It can be argued that activity and social participation partly define the overall quality of each person’s lived experience and influence many areas of life most people consider important such as personal autonomy and self-reliance.  Active Support (AS) is a set of empirically tested procedures for organizing small community homes to maximize opportunities for adults and young persons to participate fully in everyday, life-defining activity and engage in meaningful social interaction.  Active Support integrates procedures for Activity and Support Planning, Individual Program Planning, Community Access, Opportunity Planning and Structured Teaching.  Effective training in Active Support combines a brief workshop approach with an on-site, highly structured behavioral approach that is individually tailored to each staff-client combination.  The latter is called Interactive Training and sessions typically cover a) activity preparation and presentation, b) providing support and assistance, c) making participation rewarding, and d) managing personal behavior and the social environment.  As a system AS generates rich data seams that are useful for routinely monitoring service effort (inputs) and individual client experience (outcomes).  AS complements bespoke behavioral intervention and augmented communication systems.

Sandy Toogood is a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst with more than 30 years clinical and related academic experience.  He is one of the originators of Active Support and the principal architect of the Interactive Training model.  Sandy has led many workshops on Active Support and co-authored several published articles.   Vaso Totsika is doing a PhD under the supervision of Sandy Toogood and Richard Hastings in the University of Wales, Bangor. Her research focuses on the evaluation of the effects of Active Support on the quality of life of adults with an intellectual disability living in a community residential setting.

Key References:
Jones, E., Perry, J., Lowe, K., Allen, D., Toogood, S., & Felce, D. (1996).  Active Support: A Handbook for Planning Daily Activities and Support Arrangements for People with Learning Disabilities. Booklets 1-6. Cardiff: Welsh Centre for Learning Disabilities Applied Research Unit.  McGill, P. & Toogood, S. (1994). Organizing community placements. In E. Emerson, McGill, P., & Mansell, J. (Eds.), Severe Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviours. Designing High Quality Services. London: Chapman & Hall.  Totsika, V., Toogood, S., & Hastings, R. (under review). Active Support: development, evidence base and future directions. International Review of Research in Mental Retardation