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Services for offenders who have learning disabilities are generally provided in secure and medium secure units. These services are often provided in segregated and congregated settings using therapeutic interventions. This paper presents a case study of a housing‐based service provided within the community, based on developing valued social roles for vulnerable people.In 2003 the then Labour government in the UK sought to align all of the state benefits paid to people who were not in work due to disability and other disadvantages. The resulting ‘transitional housing benefit’ integrated housing benefit and other support grants, with the aim of providing vulnerable people and service providers with a single point of reference when it came to the funding of accommodation and support. The service is based on the principle of normalisation (Wolfensberger, 1972; Tyne & O'Brien, 1981), the theory of social role valorisation (SRV) (Wolfensberger & Thomas, 1983; Wolfensberger et al, 1996; Race, 1999) and O'Brien's Framework for Accomplishment (O'Brien, 1987) and provides a credible alternative to more traditional approaches.The paper provides a critical introduction to SRV and O'Brien's Framework and how their principles have been used to support people with complex needs. It discusses some of the structures and attitudes prevalent in society or, as Wolfensberger calls them, the ‘domains’ and ‘major channels’ by which people with learning disabilities are oppressed.The case study includes examples of practice and shows some interesting differences in patterns of referral and destination routes for males and females and concludes with some implications for practice.

Public parks are good for our mental and physical health. They provide a sense of community for local people and passers‐through. They provide social role valorisation for the dispossessed. They contribute to improving urban environments and combating the stress of city life. And they are highly valued by the public, argues Julia Thrift. But recognition of their many benefits may come too late to inform the government's sustainable communities plan and its plans to construct thousands of new homes throughout the south east.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Alex Cockain’s article “De-fusing and re-fusing face-to-face encounters involving autistic persons in Hong Kong”.

The commentary considers the issues raised in Cockain’s article primarily from a focus on Goffman’s concept of “stigma”. Cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of stigma are examined and its wider relevance considered.

There has been less research on the stigma of learning disability than on that of mental health, despite a very early study of learning disability (Edgerton, 1967) using the concept only four years after the publication of Goffman’s (1963) seminal work. A number of points of relevance of stigma are identified including to social role valorisation, visible and invisible stigmas, the concept of “passing”, microaggression, disablism and labelling.

The commentary illustrates the relevance of the concept of stigma to other aspects of learning disability and disability scholarship.

This paper has been developed to explore and discuss aspects related to teaching social justice, equity and inclusive understandings to business students in an Australian university, in particular within the area of disability inclusion in business settings. This paper seeks to describe the author's journey of reflection and re‐definition of disability and to serve as a case study for other academics interested in pursuing a similar path in other areas of tertiary business education.

This paper has adopted a self‐study research approach that, through the use of reflection in and on practice, seeks to improve the practice of teachers by understanding themselves as teachers, the purpose of which is to ultimately assist in improving the education.

This paper identifies some positive outcomes of using thirdspace pedagogical teaching practices. These outcomes include the opportunity for international and local students to develop deeper understandings with respect to cultural influences concerning the conceptualisation of contested concepts as well as the opportunity for tertiary educators to further develop their knowledge and understanding of cultural diversity within specific course content.

This paper recommends the need to support and encourage thirdspace pedagogical teaching as a valued and useful educational approach; the need for academic teaching to proactively seek ways to include both non‐western and western perspectives in teaching material; and the need for teaching academics to share and disseminate tacit teaching experiences of international students to the broader academy.

This paper contributes to increasing the understanding of tertiary sector pedagogical teaching practices, particularly within an internationalised curriculum setting.

A quarterly reflection on recent research into mental health and social inclusion issues.

The current, established scale used to measure personal reputation treats the construct as a unidimensional measure. For example, the scale fails to distinguish between individuals who are known for being socially popular versus those who are known for being experts in their field. This study aims to address this issue by developing a multidimensional personal reputation scale.

Based on existing theory, a scale is developed and validated against existing, similar constructs. First, a panel of three academic experts who have done research on personal reputation, and also two professional experts who have rich experience in the management field, evaluated the items for face validity. Then 112 working adults were asked to rate the reputation of a co-worker. Each dimension of personal reputation was validated against an existing, similar scale (e.g. social reputation was validated against an existing “popularity” scale).

A multi-dimensional, personal reputation scale is presented. This measure purports that personal reputation has three dimensions: task, social and integrity.

The presented scale allows researchers to distinguish different types of reputations in the workplace. This is significant because both anecdotal evidence and empirical findings suggest that to simply assume that reputation based upon being a person of high integrity and upon being an expert at a specific task will present the same outcomes is a fallacy. To further the knowledge of personal reputation, a need exists to be able to measure the different dimensions of reputation.

This chapter reports on a hybrid sector of disability provision in Australia and the changes to the sector due to the shift to person-centred care in Australia. It explains the significant changes to the way the sector will respond to government and to client demands and how the organisations are responding to this by re-structuring and building new performance measurement systems including Social Return on Investment.

The first part of the chapter is descriptive of the change to person-centred care in the Australian disability sector using public reports. The second part of the chapter looks at the change at a micro level using an analysis of the literature.

Findings illustrate how the National Disability Insurance Scheme has brought about significant change between sectors of government and between providers, both government and non-government. Organisations have had to make significant changes to adapt to the government’s policy and especially funding change. This includes setting new governance and leadership models, changed human resource management practices and performance measurement systems.

The paper is a report relatively early in the transition phases, and therefore, more evidence is needed as the system change progresses. Still, the Australian disability sector provides a powerful example of significant hybridisation changes as a result of a shift to person-centred care.

This is a dramatic change from the Australian government to impose person-centred care. The adaptations of Australian organisations provide an interesting insight for the international community.

People with long-term experience of mental health problems can find it difficult to access higher education. The loss of confidence, social isolation and the stigma that often comes with mental ill health can make entering a university a daunting and intimidating experience. In this chapter, we consider Converge, a project which seeks to provide educational opportunities – across the campus of York St John University – to local people with mental health problems. The authors will suggest that the university environment and its people play a key role in supporting participants to learn, develop and progress. It is not medical or therapeutic interventions that make the difference, but learning within a socially valued and challenging environment.

This chapter provides a conceptual framework for inclusive education for learners with low-incidence disabilities grounded in the argument that increased access and participation in socially valued roles, activities, and settings are both the most fundamental goals of the inclusive education process and also the primary means in which these goals are achieved. By challenging traditional views of learning development as merely the acquisition of skills, the proposed framework largely considers the social contexts in which the development of new skills takes place. Through the presentation of three case illustrations, the authors describe ways in which the framework may be relevant to designing and evaluating programs of inclusive education that are responsive to the needs of diverse communities, including those in a variety of international contexts.