The Gap Between Humanistic Ideals and Everyday Direct Support for Adults With Intellectual Disabilities: Reflections of Young Volunteers in Residential ID Services

Background

Humanistic and rights‐based approaches emphasize dignity, autonomy, self‐determination and meaningful participation in community life for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). Yet, in many ID services, everyday support is often shaped by risk‐averse routines, safeguarding responsibilities and normalization‐oriented expectations, creating tensions between declared commitments and daily practice.

This study focuses on a year‐long residential volunteer programme in which Generation Z young adults live and volunteer alongside adults with ID in a residential community. Their close involvement in everyday life, combined with their absence of formal professional responsibilities, offers a unique vantage point for re‐examining how autonomy, protection and expectations of progress are negotiated in everyday support.

Method

Using a qualitative design, the study drew on focus‐group data collected over 6 months with 12 young volunteers aged 18–19 in a year‐long residential programme within a professionally guided residential ID service. The discussions explored volunteers' reflections on everyday support relationships, autonomy, protection, social inclusion and the meanings they attributed to volunteering. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed manually using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

The findings are organized according to the study's three research questions. Volunteers perceived the goals of support as extending beyond functional independence towards authentic dialogue, supported challenge and a more flexible understanding of progress. They also described volunteering as a developmental encounter that reshaped their self‐perceptions through vulnerability, responsibility and relational acceptance. Finally, they viewed social change as dependent on everyday exposure to people with ID, through which their presence becomes familiar, ordinary and less stigmatized.

Conclusions

Volunteers' reflections offer a distinctive lens for examining how humanistic commitments are translated into everyday residential support. Their accounts illuminate the relational and ethical tensions involved in balancing autonomy, protection, normalization and expectations of independence. The findings suggest the value of strengthening reflective practice in ID services and of re‐examining how ‘progress’ is defined in everyday support, beyond functional goals and standardized expectations.