Conclusions

The research found that good-practice robust SDA tailored to each resident’s specific needs has potential to improve quality of life and resident outcomes while reducing behaviours of concern.

Conclusions

Robust SDA plays a vital role in offering suitable housing for a diverse group of people. This group has a wide range of sensory and environmental needs, disabilities and behaviours of concern. The research found that good-practice robust SDA tailored to each resident’s specific needs has potential to improve quality of life and resident outcomes while reducing behaviours of concern. This link between the suitability and quality of the built space and resident outcomes highlights the importance of effective robust SDA design. It also points to more effective design in other SDA categories more broadly.

Yet, the research found several issues currently facing robust SDA including:

  • the nature and quality of current robust SDA offerings (not considered good or ‘ideal’ practice)
  • funding limits
  • challenges supporting resident choice and best outcomes in shared living arrangements.

Stakeholders and family members felt there was a clear need for changes and improvements to robust SDA offerings and the systems that support it. The research found a lack of guidance in good-practice robust SDA. This highlights the need for a clear set of good-practice design principles. These principles would guide development of more effective housing solutions and support improvements in available robust SDA.

We developed seven good-practice design principles through the research. The need for a person-centred co-design approach with residents, their families/carers and broader support networks would ensure each home is tailored to individual residents’ needs.

These design principles also apply across other SDA categories. Using or adapting these more broadly could be considered in the future.

The research found a set of design elements and features to support these principles. Part C of the report outlines these.

Adopting the design principles found through this research will contribute to better quality outcomes for residents of robust SDA. But it is important to note that they form only part of the solution. Broader policy changes would need to address some existing barriers to creating effective homes for this group such as funding constraints.

Updated