Contemporary issues in intellectual disability practice, policy and research.

In this final issue of Journal of Intellectual Disabilities for 2011 a range of contemporary issues relevant to family life, the health of young people with intellectual disabilities inpatient use of services by adults with intellectual disabilities, and social policy are all explored. The first paper by Starke reports on interveiws undertaken with eleven young adults with intellectual disability her study was aimed at recording their experiences of growing up in homes where at least one parent had the same or a similar disability. Her findings suggest two main themes. The first; the majority of the young adults in her study had positive experiences of family life during their upbringing, secondly, but worryingly these participants described experiences of being bullied and harassed outside the family context. Her study clearly highlights the importance of parents, the family, and informal networks in the bringing of children up and portrays the potential consequences of the participants' negative experiences of peer contacts and their sense of exclusion might have for their prospects in later life. In the second paper Kishore from India explores the impact of disability and coping in mothers of children with intellectual disabilities as compared with mothers of children with intellectual disabilities who also have multiple disabilities. In his paper he points out the importance of understanding this impact and its relationship on parenting and care-giving. To achieve this he compared 30 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities with 30 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities and additional disabilities. Both groups were assessed for disability impact and coping. Despite variations in coping patterns, both positive and negative coping strategies were observed in both the groups. He argues that the results seem to imply that the impact of intellectual disability is so pervasive that with the exception of certain domains parents may not perceive any more negative impact as a subsequence of any additional disabilities. Continuing with the family theme McConkey, Gent and Scowcroft explore critical features of short break and community support services to families and disabled young people whose behaviour is severely challenging. They rightly point out that parenting a child with severely challenging behaviours is very stressful and clearly has a significant impact on family