Reluctant conscripts? Service users' experiences of vocational service modernisation

Abstract

Helen Bird and colleagues report on a small‐scale research project completed in west Yorkshire that examined the effects of the closure of a traditional sheltered workshop on those who attended. The closure was contentious, and the report questions the centrality accorded to ‘social exclusion’ as a central feature of current policy and practice. They argue for a more nuanced approach, which reflects both service users' actual preferences and current social realities.