ISSCY_Preliminary

 ​At the ‘2019 International Forum on the comparison and analysis of Korean·U.S·Japanese policies for the elderly with developmental disabilities,’ sociologist Seok-soon Shim, an expert in social welfare and social policy, asserted that the “reality of the welfare system regarding the elderly disabled in Korea is too embarrassing to tell you here [forum].” The gravity of this problem becomes only more pressing by the fact that according to a 2018 census, 87.6% of the disabled population in Korea was over age 40, and 77.3% was over age 50 (Chung, 2019). This indicates that the majority of developmentally disabled people in Korea are either part of the elderly generation or experiencing premature aging, which happens around the age of 40 amongst people with developmental disabilities. As contentious as it is, Shim’s claim is easily corroborated by examples around us: when I volunteered at the ‘group home’ facility called ‘Simeon’s House’, all four of the intellectually disabled people living in the facility were over 45, placing them in the early aging generation with disabilities. However, there is currently a dearth of attention given to this phenomenon, especially in the field of governmental policies or reforming existing systems. As severely intellectually disabled people need special care and lifelong support from either their families or facilities, improved governmental policies are crucial in better accounting for the aging population of intellectually disabled people. This research examines three systems of support that governments mainly use or can possibly use in order to respond to the aging population of intellectually disabled people: financial support, institutions such as rehabilitation centers for intellectually disabled people, and group-home service. While governmental financial support is the most widely conducted form in various countries including Korea, it does not provide solutions for the fundamental causes of the lower average income of families with severely intellectually disabled people (Yoon 2019). Institutions for disabled people such as social welfare facilities are placed in peripheral districts instead of urban centers, which makes it difficult for them to secure manpower. Furthermore, they also struggle financially as they are allocated only a minimum budget. The ‘group home’ is a relatively small-scale local residential facility established to support the community-based independent life of the intellectually disabled. With the group home system, the caretaking obligations of the family members are re-distributed on a more social level. Bigby et al.(2010)’s surveys in five countries—the U.K, Australia, Canada, the U.S., and Ireland— have shown that group homes could be an effective method to support both the aging population of intellectually disabled and their families. However, they also claim that “group homes appear to be feasible but hampered by the absence of firm policy commitment and defined programmatic strategies such as the provision of flexible funding”. As such, this research will further discuss the reason why the group home system potentially appears to be the most helpful among those three methods and propose suggestions on how to improve the small but existing deficiencies in the group-home system. Keywords intellectually disabled people / group home / facilities for intellectually disabled / aging of intellectually disabled / financial support Works Cited Bigby, Christine, et al. “A Five-Country Comparative Review of Accommodation Support Policies for Older People with Intellectual Disability.” Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, vol. 7, no. 1, 2010, pp. 3–15., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-1130.2010.00242.x. Chung, Jeewon. “'걸음마 단계' 고령장애인 정책 문제점 수두룩.” Ablenews, 2019, http://www.ablenews.co.kr/News/NewsContent.aspx?CategoryCode=0022&NewsCode=002220 190923183127387572. Yoon, Sangyong. 최저소득보장을 위한 장애인 소득보장 법제 개편의 쟁점과 방안, 2019 Accessed 2022