ABSTRACT
In recent years within the UK the rather simplistic notion that services easily fitted the needs of families governed professional and policy-maker opinion alike. Critiques of services’ adequacy and appropriateness have challenged such views. In this chapter there are three main areas of discussion. The first section outlines the complex notions around the ideas that families need services. The second places families within the new discourse of formal care and discusses ways in which the needs of families with members who have learning disabilities have been conceptualised. In the third section, the focus is on the delivery of services, the complex process of access and involvement and families’ perceptions of the process and their influence.
