Constructed households as sites of innovation

The long standing practice of institutionalising those with special needs or who are considered a public danger – in mental hospitals, prisons, care homes, children’s homes, or special schools  - is being re-assessed, and attempts made to retrain people as members of their own or constructed households with a range of external support.  In some cases the institutions themselves have been remodelled as extended families, with the mutual commitments that this entails.