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Abstract: Community integration (CI) is an important aspect of therapeutic recreation services for many client groups. CI speaks to the hill social, physical, and psychological presence of individuals with disabilities and/or illnesses in their communities, whether that may be their personal homes, group homes, halfway houses, or long-term care facilities. The benefits of CI are numerous and include physical, social, psychological, health, and quality of life related outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent research regarding CI for individuals with (a) cerebrovascular accidents and traumatic brain injury, (b) intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, (c) mental illnesses, and (d) spinal cord injuries, and for (e) aging individuals with chronic diseases and/or illnesses. Specific implications for therapeutic recreation practice from this research are highlighted.
Keywords: community integration, cerebrovascular accident, traumatic brain injury, mental illness, intellectual and/or developmental disability, spinal cord injury, older adults with chronic conditions and/or illnesses, therapeutic recreation practice
Originally, community integration (Cl) focused on just the physical integration or presence of individuals with disabilities in the community. In more recent years, however, it has evolved to equate with social integration, such that the person lives, participates, and socializes in his or her community. As such, Cl should be viewed as the penultimate goal of rehabilitation services (Brock et al., 2009; Gulcur, Tsemberis, Stefanie, & Greenwood, 2007; Parvaneh & Cocks, 2012; Townley, Miller, & Kloos, 2013; Wong & Solomon, 2002; Yasui & Berven, 2009).
Arguably, the overarching goal of the rehabilitation process, community integration, involves the acquisition or resumption of roles appropriate for a given age, gender, or culture with respect to decision making and performance of productive behaviors as part of multivaried relationships in the community. (Gontkovsky, Russum, & Stokie, 2009, p. 185)
Fuller Cl or re-integration, as some authors have termed it, allows individuals to become more productive, useful members of society and more independent in their life choices, while at the same time reducing the level of community expenditure and burden. Simply put, Cl refers to the notion that individuals with disabilities and/or illnesses have comparable opportunities to live, work, engage with others, and enjoy recreation and leisure activities in a similar manner to their cohorts without disabilities and/or illnesses (Townley et al., 2013). Cl has been shown...