Disability, Locatelli: “Away with the word handicapped by ordinary laws”

“We simplify the lives of people with disabilities and their families, and then there are two steps that seem trivial but are important: the elimination of the words ‘handicapped’ and ‘handicapped’ from all ordinary Italian laws. A result that takes us into a different dimension of taking care: from welfare to the valorization of the person with disabilities. Let’s replace those terms with ‘person with disabilities’ and this changes the perspective for the future too”. This was stated by the Minister for Disabilities Alessandra Locatelli speaking with reporters outside Palazzo Chigi at the end of the Council of Ministers, meeting for the approval of the latest implementing decree of the enabling law on disability (L.227/2021), which defines the condition of disability, introduces reasonable accommodation , reforms the assessment procedures and multidimensional evaluation for the development and implementation of the individual and personalized ‘Life Project’.

The ‘Life Project’

“This is the heart of the reform – explains the Minister – which simplifies the civil disability assessment system, eliminating review visits and which introduces the ‘Life Project’, as a tool for accompanying people’s lives. It is about a cultural and civil revolution, which develops a new paradigm in the care of people with disabilities, eliminating the extreme fragmentations between health, socio-health and social services. The experimentation will start from January 1st 2025, but already this year Intense and widespread training will begin between organizations and categories for the adoption of this new model”.

“Let’s start to overturn the perspective and talk no longer just about welfare but about valorisation of people, let’s simplify and de-bureaucratize the processes and above all let’s start from the desires and choices of each person, as foreseen by the UN Convention, to arrive at a dignified life path for each person”.