Rebuilding local support systems – person by person, place by place- international advances in Local Area Coordination across disability, social care, health and mental health

Blog by Eddie Bartnik, International Consultant, Disability

An exciting development has happened in the international development of Local Area Coordination as a leading approach to personalised and local support across areas of disability, social care and health and mental health which also demonstrates a high level of value for money and better use of public resources. Jointly with my colleagues Ralph Broad Nick Sinclair Dr Sandhya Duggal (University of St Andrews) from Wales, England and Scotland, published our latest article in the journal: Disability and Society.

Currently, many service systems around the world focus on tightened eligibility and critical needs rationing. This stops many people and families being able to access support until they are experiencing significant hardship and crisis, which also results in increasing unmet need and escalating service demands and costs. Our paper asserts Local Area Coordination’s alignment with contemporary policy priorities by instead focussing on citizenship rights, shifting resources towards prevention over crisis response, and nurturing local community solutions rather than service-led responses.

With 38 years of evidence from independent researchers and evaluators, and when applied with fidelity to key design and implementation features, Local Area Coordination has emerged as an evidence-based transformative approach to addressing social challenges across diverse populations and geographical regions.

In the context of growing public service backlogs, austerity driven reforms and the marketisation of disability services, Local Area Coordination offers a radical alternative grounded in relational, rights and strengths-based community development and evidence. Development has been driven by national and international leadership networks, including Global Leadership Exchange and the England and Wales Local Area Coordination Network hosted by Community Catalysts CIC

The collaboration model hosted by Global Leadership Exchange has facilitated ongoing international leadership development and knowledge exchange around Local Area Coordination through hosted “Matches” as part of the Sweden, New Zealand and Netherlands Leadership Exchanges as well we the upcoming match as part of the Canada Leadership Exchange in 2026.

I invite you to check out our publication and stay tuned to developments in Nova Scotia, Canada where Local Area Coordination is a foundational piece of the Human Rights Remedy for systemic discrimination against Nova Scotians with a disability.

You can access the full article: Rebuilding local support systems – person by person, place by place- international advances in Local Area Coordination via this link.