Isabelle is a 30-year old woman with a physical disability who has lived all her life with her family.

Over the past years she has been working hard to obtain her driving licence, buy a car, her own flat, move in with her boyfriend Mark and eventually leave the family home. The moment her family saw this coming, they took it personally. They felt that they were giving Isabelle the space she needed - so why should she want to move out?

Mark is visually impaired and has lived in a residential home most of his life. He has been exploring ways how to better his quality of life and perhaps relocate into the community. His relationship with Isabelle and their determination to have their own flat has given him new hope. However, every time he tries to bring up the subject at the residential home, the staff start getting edgy and the message he picks up is that 'once out, never back in'.

'Disabled people have never demanded or asked for care. We have sought independent living, which means being able to achieve maximum independence and control over our own lives' (Richard Wood, 1991).

There was recently a story in the media about a young man living in an institution for a number of months because he did not seem to have the required services that would have allowed him to live in the community. The way he recounted this story confirmed that, more than anything else, he felt 'incarcerated'. This situation puts into perspective the in/effectiveness of our social policy, notably our service provision sector.

While what happened to this young man may not be the exact replica of people with disability's stories, there are some pressing questions that emanate from this narrative: Are our support services, notably Aġenzija Sapport, organised well enough to meet the expectations of people with disability who want to live autonomously? Are parents and carers of people with disability being trained to 'let go'? Are they convinced about the quality of support being offered? Are we researching well enough the transformations within the community and the needs that come with such changes, namely the gradual withdrawal of family members as primary carers for people with disability due to present day lifestyles?

Is Dar tal-Providenza really committed to downsizing homes in Siġġiewi and transferring operations into alternative accommodation models, doing away with a dependency model (or would this jeopardise the charity and charitable aura that the Curia has been developing over the years to sustain this home)?

Are residential services currently provided by Sapport, notably Vajrita Home in Marsascala, aimed towards personalised service? Will Mount Carmel Hospital and St Vincent de Paul still hospitalise people with disability in an over-regimented and institutionalised setting?

Our service providers have been trying incessantly to organise the right type of support services over the past years, but when speaking to service users, I'm not too sure they are personalised, quick, proactive and, community and person-based well enough as yet. Social policy needs to be resolute and unyielding, whereby all stakeholders (people with disability, parents, allies, academics, policy-makers, politicians) are committed to unifying, including and merging.

Those leading this sector ought to admit that we lack three important features in our social policy for disability: political decisiveness, harmonisation and co-ordination, important ingredients if it is to be effective - a welfare system that offers the individual an opportunity to be liberated and a system that is easy to use, to move into and out of without fear of losing the shelter it provides. We need to entrust control to people with disability, reward initiative and strap up capacity-building measures.

All this goes hand in hand with making the equal opportunities legislation more accessible. We need to develop disability empowerment centres at local council levels (the equivalent of centres for independent living in the UK), create a Commissioner for Equality and construe statutory direct payment and personal assistant schemes (these have proved more cost-effective).

We should create a social fund that will compensate for shortcomings in statutory service provision and serve as a cushion for unprojected costs. Targeted and well planned employability schemes are necessary.

'Independent living is about both human and civil rights. If disabled people do not have control over the very basic activities of daily living, then they cannot hope even to begin to participate in society on an equal basis' (Jenny Morris, 1993).

Are people with disability being encouraged to live in 'a home away from home'? This is not just about opportunity but about creating a social policy that supports this choice.

Dr Azzopardi is a university lecturer with the Department of Youth and Community Studies, Faculty of Education.