Context

Intellectual disabilities affect about 1–3% of the global population1 and often require care environments like group homes as a more personalised option than traditional institutional care.2 Group homes, a prevalent model of residential care for adults with intellectual disabilities in the UK and other countries, aim to support personal autonomy and community integration through staff-supported living arrangements.3 While creating home-like settings aim to enhance residents’ quality of life, the subjective experiences of comfort, belonging and autonomy within these homes remain insufficiently explored.4 This research seeks to address this gap, investigating how personal identity, physical space and social relationships contribute to, or hinder, the experience of feeling at home in group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities.

Findings

This study5 identified three main dimensions of ‘feeling at home’: personal, physical and social. The personal home involved residents’ ability to personalise their spaces, with personal possessions playing a crucial role in expressing identity. The physical home centred on how accessible and comfortable the living environment was, with issues like mobility barriers impacting residents’ comfort. The social home emphasised the relationships with staff and housemates, where support from staff was essential in fostering a sense of belonging.

Commentary

This study5 aligns with the existing evidence base in several key areas while also addressing gaps in current research. It reinforces the established understanding that smaller, home-like environments are more conducive to psychological well-being for adults with intellectual disabilities than larger, institutional settings, consistent with findings that suggest home-like features in residential care improve well-being and engagement in activities.6 The study highlights a challenge that is less emphasised in much of the research: the difficulty of achieving genuine community integration for residents with intellectual disabilities. While many studies, such as those3 suggest that smaller, more home-like settings naturally lead to better social inclusion, this study found that residents often have limited interactions with their neighbours and local communities. Furthermore, the study points out that achieving a social home requires consistent, empathetic support from staff, which is not always guaranteed. The inconsistency in staff engagement and the precarious nature of relationships with housemates can lead to feelings of instability.

The study’s strengths include its inclusivity and the successful engagement of participants with diverse support needs, even those with significant communication challenges. Additionally, the study’s collaborative approach, involving a researcher with intellectual disabilities and working with a participatory arts organisation, ensured that the research remained centred on participants’ perspectives and emphasised their agency. However, the study’s findings are context-specific, being focused on group homes in England, which limits the generalisability to other cultural and regional settings. Moreover, interpreting the experiences of participants with high support needs involved researcher observation and input from staff, potentially introducing interpretive bias. Additionally, the presence of staff during some sessions could have influenced how participants expressed themselves, as their dynamics with staff might have shaped the discussions and the nature of their engagement in the study. Finally, the study also does not thoroughly explore variations in staff training or their professional backgrounds, which may have contributed to inconsistencies in staff engagement and quality of care across the group homes. Additionally, the study is limited in its examination of the external factors—such as local community engagement, societal attitudes or government policies—that play a critical role in fostering or hindering community integration for residents.