Evaluation of families' views on day care centres for individuals with intellectual disabilities: The case of Keçiören

Disabled people are one of the most important disadvantaged groups emphasized by social policies that aim to provide a minimum level of social welfare and social justice to the whole society. It is the responsibility of social policies and social services, which is a sub-branch of social policies, to identify the problem areas faced by disabled people in social life and to produce solutions. In line With this responsibility, the scope of the care service, which is one of the problem areas for disabled people, has changed in the historical process. Instead of traditional institutional care services, Day Care Rehabilitation and Family Counseling Centers were established by giving priority to day care services that allow disabled people to live independently and intertwined with the society without being isolated in line with the community-based rehabilitation approach. The purpose of this study is to determine the satisfaction levels and opinions of families with mentally disabled individuals who receive services from Day Care Rehabilitation and Family Counseling Centers, as well as the extent to which their expectations and needs are met. Designed using the interpretive phenomenology research method, the study was conducted through in-depth interviews with families of individuals with disabilities who receive services from Day Care Rehabilitation and Family Counseling Centers. In the interviews with 20 families with mentally disabled children, the focus was on their satisfaction levels with the day care service model, their opinions about the service, the extent to which their needs were met, and their expectations. According to the findings of the study, families of persons with disabilities were found to be satisfied with the day care model. In addition, it was understood that they requested a focus on models offering vocational training opportunities, an increase in the number of centers, and efforts to provide social support to families in order to reduce their care burdens.