Abstract:

In recent years there has been increasing interest in community-based residential services (eg, foster homes & group homes) as alternatives to institutionalization of people with problems in areas such as mental health, mental retardation, child welfare, & aging. A selective review of the literature was undertaken to identify key issues, problems, & concepts in the use & development of community-based services. Presented are findings & conclusions regarding conceptualizations of services, issues in service delivery, & evaluation of effectiveness, as well as a proposed conceptual framework useful in examining the continuum of emerging services. A major problem seems to be that writers & researchers in a particular problem area generally do not benefit from knowledge gained about similar difficulties in other problem areas, but tend to proceed independently.