About the Author

Dr. Stancliffe is Consultant Research Associate with the Research and Training Center on Community Living, Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota. He is also Senior Research Fellow and Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies in Sydney, Australia. Previously, he held research posts at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, as well as clinical, consultative, and service management positions in intellectual disability services in Australia. He is Editor of the Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability and Consulting Editor to four other international research journals. In 2002, he was appointed Fellow of the American Association on Mental Retardation. He has written two previous books and more than 70 articles, chapters, and technical reports on issues relating to community living, deinstitutionalisation, self-determination, individual planning, service outcomes and costs, and challenging behavior.

K. Charlie Lakin, Ph.D., is Director of the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) on Community Living at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Dr. Lakin has more than 25 years of experience in providing services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as a teacher, researcher, trainer, consultant, and advocate. He is principal investigator of numerous research and/or training centers and projects and has authored or co-authored more than 175 books, monographs, journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports. Dr. Lakin has been a frequent consultant to federal and state agencies on matters of policy, research, and evaluation, including the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), the National Center on Health Statistics, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Congressional Research Service, the General Accounting Office, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Lakin has worked actively as a director or consultant for nonprofit organizations and agencies focused on community services, arts, outdoor recreation and adventure, integrated sports, and advocacy for individuals with disabilities. He has collaborated with universities, private research companies, and foundations in national evaluation and research programs. Dr. Lakin currently is an associate editor of Mental Retardation and an editorial board member of the Journal of The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps (JASH), the Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, and the Journal of Social Science and Disability. Among the recognitions afforded Dr. Lakin are the Dybwad Humanitarian Award of the American Association on Mental Retardation and an appointment by former President Clinton to the President's Committee on Mental Retardation.

The first research post of David Felce, Ph.D., was at the University of Southampton from 1973 through 1986, where he conducted research on the quality of residential services for people with mental retardation requiring extensive or pervasive support or other developmental disabilities, with a small excursion into the quality of residential accommodations for older adults with mental infirmities or who were physically frail. After 3 years as Director of the British Institute of Mental Handicap, he was appointed to his current post at the University of Wales College of Medicine. He maintains research interests in the measurement of quality of life, the determinants of quality in community housing services, the analysis and amelioration of challenging behavior, and service development generally in the field of intellectual disabilities. He is a co-editor of Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities and serves on the editorial boards of seven other intellectual disability journals. In addition, he is a member of the council of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities.

Amy S. Hewitt has an extensive background and work history in the field of developmental disabilities and has worked in various positions over the past 23 years, including as a residential Program Director and Director of Training. She is currently Research Associate and Director of Interdisciplinary Training at the University of Minnesota, Institute on Community Integration, where she directs several federal and state research, evaluation, and demonstration projects in the areas of direct support professional (DSP) workforce development and community human services for people with disabilities. Dr. Hewitt is a national leader in the are of workforce development and community supports for individuals with developmental disabilities. Dr. Hewitt's current projects include the College of Directs Support, a national training curriculum development projects that currently offers training to more than 100,000 DSPs throughout the United States; Mobilizing for Change, an Administration on Developmental Disabilities field-initiated project to develop an on-line training curriculum for frontline supervisors (College of Frontline Supervision); Removing the Revolving Door, a national project to develop and implement a train-the-trainer technical assistance model in five states to teach other how to effectively work with organizations to reduce DSP turnover and vacancy rates; Kansa Mobilizing for Workforce Change, a systems change project to improve retention and recruitment of the DSPs in community human services organizations; and The Illinois Comprehensive Workforce Development Initiative to Achieve Improved Individual Outcomes for Citizens with Intellectual and Development Disabilities, a statewide systems change project to reduce direct support professional turnover. Dr. Hewitt has authored and co-authored many curricula, journal articles, and manuscripts. She is a managing editor of Frontline Initiative, a national newsletter for DSPs; a contributing editor for LINKS, a newsletter of ANCOR; and guest editor of Mental Retardation, a journal of the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR). She is currently a board member for Arc Hennepin-Carver and for Friendship Ventures. She is a founding member and past Co-Chair of the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals and a past board member of the AAMR.

David R. Johnson, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the Institute on Community Integration at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota.

Sheryl A. Larson has 23 years of experience in providing services to individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities as a residential counselor, behavior analyst, program evaluator, consultant, personal advocate and researcher. She earned a B.A. in psychology and elementary education from Bethel College in St. Paul Minnesota, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota, College of Education and Human Development. Her dissertation examined factors associated with turnover in small group home settings. She is Research Director and a principal investigator at the Research and Training Center on Community Living, where she has worked since 1987, directing projects involving survey and intervention services, personnel issues, disability statistics, and community integration for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Dr. Larson has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications on those topics. Recent books include Using Survey Data to Study Disability: Results from the National Health Survey on Disability, co-edited with B.M.Altman, S.N.Barnartt, and G.E.Hendershot (Elsevier JAI, 2003) and Staff Recruitment and Retention: Study Results and Intervention Strategies, co-authored with K.C.Lakin and R.H.Bruininks (American Association on Mental Retardation [AAMR], 1998). Dr. Larson currently directs two National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) field-initiated projects, including one to create a national technical assistance model to support front-line supervisors and another to conduct analyses using the National Health Interview Survey to describe characteristics of and outcomes for people with disabilities living in their own family homes. She has worked with her colleagues at the University of Minnesota to develop statewide work-force plans and to provide technical assistance on workforce issues to providers and families in several states. She has made more than 150 presentations at national, state, regional, and local conferences and workshops, including workshops on staff recruitment and retention for more than 3,000 managers and supervisors. She is an AAMR Fellow, President of the AAMR Community Services Division, a consulting editor of Mental Retardation and Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability and has participated in NIDRR and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant review panels. She serves on the Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities as the higher education representative and is on the Board of Directors of No Place Like Home, a program providing supportive housing to adults with disabilities.

Patricia Noonan Walsh, Ph.D., is NDA Professor of Disability Studies at University College Dublin in Ireland and is a Fellow of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability (IASSD). She has authored publications in the areas of aging, inclusive employment, and education, and the health and quality of life for people with disabilities. Dr. Walsh is co-editor with Tamar Heller of Health of Women with Intellectual Disabilities (Blackwell, 2002).

Reviews

Wide ranging, clear, and comprehensive . . . will be an important contemporary reference for all levels of policy makers, program planners, and advocates for the advancement of quality, individualized community services. --Richard G. Luecking, Ed.D.

[This book] tackles head-on one of the most important and challenging issues confronting anyone charged with supporting individuals with disabilities today. The authors are not satisfied merely to ask 'How much does this cost?' . . . they [also] ask the companion question 'And what difference does it make in real-life outcomes?'--Fred P. Orelove, Ph.D. "Virginia Commonwealth University "