The Safe and Just Futures project investigated how international human rights law might be used to contest the segregation and confinement of people living with dementia that occurs through the built environment in residential aged-care facilities.
Project lead: Dr Linda Steele
Duration: 2018-2019
Older people and people with disabilities, including people living with dementia, are often housed away from the rest of a facility’s residents and the wider community, behind locked doors and fences.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers across law, public health, dementia design and psychology undertook the research, guided by an advisory group that included people living with dementia.
The researchers found that human rights are a useful framework for highlighting what’s harmful and unjust in such practices and for driving change.
What impact did we create?
The project team contributed to policy and law reform discussions and raised awareness among people living with dementia, care partners, lawyers, advocates, human rights practitioners and policymakers about the human rights of people living with dementia – including through a summit, and a submission to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Who did we work with?
- People living with dementia
- Care partners
- Service providers
- Advocates and lawyers
- Kate Swaffer, University of Wollongong and Dementia Alliance International
- Lyn Phillipson, University of Wollongong
- Richard Fleming, University of Wollongong
- Dementia Alliance International
- Group Homes Australia
- Human Rights Watch
- Aged and Disability Advocates Australia