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Video Description

Type: KIHASA Policy Featurette

Topic: What Is Needed for the Care of People with Severe Developmental Disabilities

Speaker: Kim Dong-gi, Professor, Mokwon University; Choi Hyun-soo, Research Fellow, KIHASA

Transcript

Choi:

There are only 12 regional hospitals for people with developmental disabilities in the country. Professor Kim Dong-gi, could you tell us more about the current situation of service providers and service workers involved in integrated care for people with severe developmental disabilities and what improvements are needed moving forward?

Kim:

Our society already has a support system in place for people with developmental disabilities who have some behavioral problems. For example, various existing systems such as welfare centers for people with disabilities, day care centers, activity centers, vocational rehabilitation facilities, and suburban residential facilities provide support services for people with developmental disabilities. However, they are not specialized enough to provide targeted services for people with severe disabilities. There are mainly two reasons why our society has failed to provide targeted support to people with severe developmental disabilities. First, there is a shortage of workers in the existing delivery systems. Second, the workers in these systems do not have enough capacity and expertise to provide specialized support for people with severe developmental disabilities, whose challenging behavior tends to be more intense than that of people with less severe disabilities. These two issues are the main reasons why people with severe developmental disabilities have been left at home rather than being cared for by public or private welfare systems.