From Rejection to Integration

In 1892 the Daughters of Charity took over the staffing of the children's Home in Cabra, Dublin. In terms of today's sensibilities, they had assumed an unimaginable task. The children themselves were, in the main part, abandoned, subjected to an unremitting workhouse regime, and obliged to walk daily in long files and hand-in-hand outside the workhouse so that the public could observe them and, perhaps, offer employment. From such unpromising beginning developed a service for children with a mental handicap which is today regarded as outstandingly professional, progressive and humane. This book traces the growth of a greater optimism in regard to the potential of persons with a handicap and the emergence of increasingly expert services involving a range of professional skills. The Daughters of charity were in the forefront of these new developments and substantial growth of their own services with emphasis on community integration is recorded.
The author draws on the reminiscences of older members of the Order to compare the past and present; he recounts too the moving stories of some of the long-term residents who, if social attitudes had been different in the past, would not have been condemned to a life of isolation from the world around them. The stories of these women are, in themselves, a sufficient justification for the modern policy of using institutional care only when there is no other alternative.
 
In 1892 the Daughters of Charity took over the staffing of the children's Home in Cabra, Dublin. In terms of today's sensibilities, they had assumed an unimaginable task. The children themselves were, in the main part, abandoned, subjected to an unremitting workhouse regime, and obliged to walk daily in long files and hand-in-hand outside the workhouse so that the public could observe them and, perhaps, offer employment. From such unpromising beginning developed a service for children with a mental handicap which is today regarded as outstandingly professional, progressive and humane. This book traces the growth of a greater optimism in regard to the potential of persons with a handicap and the emergence of increasingly expert services involving a range of professional skills. The Daughters of charity were in the forefront of these new developments and substantial growth of their own services with emphasis on community integration is recorded.
The author draws on the reminiscences of older members of the Order to compare the past and present; he recounts too the moving stories of some of the long-term residents who, if social attitudes had been different in the past, would not have been condemned to a life of isolation from the world around them. The stories of these women are, in themselves, a sufficient justification for the modern policy of using institutional care only when there is no other alternative.