'What vision?': experiences of Team members in a community service for adults with intellectual disabilities.
UK community ID teams feel burned out and lack shared vision, risking reactive care.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 76 staff in UK community ID services about burnout and team vision.
They used a short survey and open questions.
Staff worked in clinics, day centres, and supported living.
What they found
Half the staff felt high burnout.
Most said the team had no clear vision.
Paperwork ruled the day, not client needs.
How this fits with other research
Lee et al. (2009) saw the same burnout in Taiwan residential staff.
Wormald et al. (2019) later found 28 % yearly turnover in US case managers.
Bowen et al. (2012) seems to clash: their staff felt positive about working with adults with ID.
The difference is team stability. N et al. studied staff who already knew their clients. H et al. studied teams that kept changing.
McConkey et al. (2010) showed staff still rank care tasks above social inclusion, matching the reactive culture H et al. found.
Why it matters
If your team feels burned out and vision-less, clients get crisis-only care.
Start small: run a 15-minute weekly huddle where staff pick one proactive goal for the week.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: In the UK, the closure of 'long-stay' hospitals was accompanied by the development of community teams (CTs) to support people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) to live in community settings. The self-reported experiences of staff working in such teams have been neglected. METHODS: Focusing on a single county-wide service, comprising five multi-disciplinary and inter-agency CTs, we measured perceptions among the health care and care management Team members of (1) their personal well-being; (2) the functioning of their team; and (3) the organisation's commitment to quality, and culture. RESULTS: Almost three-quarters of the questionnaires were returned (73/101; 72%). The scores of health care practitioners and care managers were very similar: (1) the MBI scores of more than half the respondents were 'of concern'; (2) similarly, almost four in ten respondents' scores on the Vision scale of the TCI were 'of concern'; (3) the perceived commitment to quality (QIIS-II Part 2) was uncertain; and (4) the organisational culture (QIIS-II, Part 1) was viewed as primarily hierarchical. DISCUSSION: The perceived absence of a vision for the service, combined with a dominant culture viewed by its members as strongly focussed on bureaucracy and process, potentially compromises the ability of these CTs to respond proactively to the needs of people with IDs. Given the changes in legislation, policy and practice that have taken place since CTs were established, it would be timely to revisit their role and purpose.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2017 · doi:10.1111/jir.12312