{"product_id":"9781773100982-shut-away","title":"Shut Away","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Down Syndrome Was a Life Sentence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn explosive book that exposes the abuses of institutionalization.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"How many brothers and sisters do you have?\" It was one of the first questions kids asked each other when Catherine McKercher was a child. She never knew how to answer it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree of the McKercher children lived at home. The fourth, her youngest brother, Bill, did not. Bill was born with Down syndrome. When he was two and a half, his parents took him to the Ontario Hospital School in Smiths Falls and left him there. Like thousands of other families, they exiled a child with disabilities from home, family, and community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rupture in her family always troubled McKercher. Following Bill's death in 1995, and after the sprawling institution where he lived had closed, she applied for a copy of Bill's resident file. What she found shocked her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on primary documents and extensive interviews, McKercher reconstructs Bill's story and explores the clinical and public debates about institutionalization: the pressure to \"shut away\" children with disabilities, the institutions that overlooked and sometimes condoned neglect and abuse, and the people who exposed these failures and championed a different approach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54829702349174,"sku":"9781773100982","price":14.33,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_31520314.jpg?v=1733320708","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781773100982-shut-away","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}