Recreation is often seen as a luxury rather than a necessity. For autistic adults, it is essential for quality of life, mental health, and social inclusion. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ensures physical access but does not address the unique needs of autistic adults. To truly provide access, we need a new approach.
The sector that is responsible for the care and treatment of individuals with behavioral health conditions is vital. It is directly involved with the patients and their families. Yet, this sector faces an extraordinary problem that is not seen in other healthcare sectors: very high and persistent turnover rates. Staff members in the behavioral health sector often are satisfied with their jobs. Yet, several specialists and direct care staff leave their positions long before they reach retirement age (Hallett et al., 2023).
Across many countries, systems supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are experiencing significant pressure. Workforce shortages, increasing service demand, and funding constraints have created fragile service environments that test providers, policymakers, and families alike. While these issues are widely recognized within the field, translating system challenges into effective, sustainable policy reform remains a continual challenge.
The transition from pediatric services to adult residential care for those on the autism spectrum is a complicated process. Educational systems, healthcare providers, social service agencies, and housing authorities all have a hand in this transition. However, the significant shift is from a system primarily geared toward providing educational and vocational services to one that is more focused on healthcare and social services within the community. And all of this happens in a period that is usually called “the transition to adulthood” (Merrick et al., 2020).
Ghana’s health system is at an inflection point. Demographic change, the rise of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), policy commitments to universal health coverage, and long-standing innovations in community-level primary care (notably the Community-Based Health Planning and Services, CHPS initiative) create fertile ground for commercially viable, socially beneficial models of home and community-based care (HCBC). This article synthesizes evidence on Ghana’s HCBC landscape, analyzes market drivers and barriers, and proposes strategic business models and policy levers for private and public actors to expand high-quality, equitable care beyond hospitals.
In Ghana, the conversations about including people with disabilities have intensified as the country pushes to become more equal and just. This dialogue has, however, mostly bypassed individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD).
Group homes often serve as critical places for individuals with developmental disabilities, like autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who require specialized support and care (JEDU Care Services, n.d.). The individuals responsible for this support, known as Direct Support Staff, work on the front lines, implementing individualized plans for Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and ensuring safety through various interventions. Among those interventions is a technique known as physical management. This term, often misused, refers to the controlled and ethical use of human power to prevent people from harming themselves or others during a crisis. However, research suggests that frontline staff struggle to strike a balance between safety, dignity, and emotional well-being that is inherent in the use of physical management.
Stigma works as an unseen barrier. It divides, pushes people to the edges of society, and, at times, silences individuals and communities. As professionals in the human services sector, we see all too well the truly devastating, and often fatal, effects stigmatization has on people's lives. Penn State University researchers describe the many forms stigma takes in a 2018 article in the online American Journal of Public Health. Their work lays a solid foundation for understanding the multifaceted nature of stigma and how it operates in society (Penn State University, 2018).
The increasingly diverse society in which we live today makes it essential to provide effective, empathetic care across cultural boundaries. The organizations I consider, when thinking about helping people, have in place a cultural compass that guides them to provide effective, compassionate care in all meaningful engagements with the people they serve. ^1
The narrative around the global healthcare system is rapidly evolving. Yet, in many places, the very foundation of the profession is still quite tenuous. In Ghana, where healthcare professionals face numerous challenges, including an inadequate number of staff and limited resources, solidifying the professional identity and capacity of nurses is now imperative.
Directing a nonprofit health organization requires a unique blend of business acumen and a commitment to public health and community well-being. Nonprofit hospitals and health systems, unlike for-profit entities, are driven by their mission to serve the community rather than by the need to generate profits for shareholders. This mission-driven model necessitates a distinct set of priorities, strategies, and challenges.
In today’s complex health and human services environment, well-run organizations are under intense pressure to deliver care of the highest quality while also contending with the kinds of financial, regulatory, and community resource issues that are the daily reality for many organizations today. These organizations have to know where they’re going, why they’re going there, and how they and others can be held accountable for the journey. They should consider a tool like the Strategic Scorecard System.
Gradual progress over recent years in Ghana has seen autism spectrum disorder awareness and support reach satisfactory levels. But establishing strong systems, early-intervention programs, and inclusive education, which are essential if children with autism are to have any hope of accessing a quality education, remains a serious challenge.
Accessibility in public spaces is a matter of dignity, independence, and inclusion—and that's what makes it a human right. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was landmark legislation, a promise made 25 years ago that wrote these values into law. The Act was a promise kept in many cases, a human virtue made enforceable by the might of federal law. But the ADA also runs through communities like a river through a landscape, obliquely shaping how things are done in the daily lives of citizens with disabilities. Accessible conditions help make that participation possible.
The Problem
Achieving food security continues to be a challenge, particularly for many African countries -including Ghana. The country has an underdeveloped agricultural sector, which is characterized by over-reliance on rain-fed farming, low fertility soils, minimal use of external farm inputs, environmental degradation, significant food crop loss both pre and post-harvest, minimal value addition, and inadequate food storage and preservation that result in significant commodity price fluctuation. The World Bank Development Report (2008) argued that poverty reduction could be best achieved if agricultural growth is centered on smallholder farmers, particularly women, who can be made more competitive and sustainable through the introduction of technological innovations.