Saba Salman is a social affairs journalist and commissioning editor who writes regularly for The Guardian. Saba is a trustee of the charity Sibs, which supports siblings of disabled children and adults, and an RSA fellow. She is a former Evening Standard local government and social affairs correspondent.
Helen Knowles, “Birth with Orgasm” (image courtesy of the artist and GV Art gallery)
Hyper-real images that question cultural attitudes towards women and childbirth form part of a new exhibition opening today.
The show at the GV Art gallery by Helen Knowles, Private View: Public Birth, features both figurative and abstract images of women “in the transcendental state of birth”; Knowles founded the Birth Rites Collection in 2008, the first collection of contemporary art dedicated to the subject.
Knowles has used screen grabs from YouTube videos to show women at the crowning stage of birth, when the baby’s head beings to emerge. By using footage from social media platforms – films usually reserved for private viewing – Knowles hopes to question the discomfort some audiences have with certain images.
The Birthing of Azheyo Aeoro (Image courtesy of artist and GV Art)
The concept is a refreshing and thought-provoking one. Most public perceptions of new mothers involve images of immaculately groomed famous women whose bodies magically snap back into place and while “beautiful” is a word often used to describe babies, it’s rarely associated with birth itself (and certainly not linked to images of the birth process).
Yet the pieces of work on display in today’s exhibition are intriguing and often ethereal, reflecting notions of female strength.
* Private View: Public Birth, a curatorial collaboration between Poppy Bowers and Helen Knowles, runs from 16-22 September at the GV Art gallery, Marylebone, London.
Building relationships with children at risk of care helps keep them at home (pic Includem/Warren Media).
The fate of children in care in Scotland has recently his the headlines; care leavers need more support, say experts, if their life chances are to improve. And today Michael Gove has criticised the care home system in England. But what if some vulnerable children could be prevented from going into care in the first place? In a joint guest post, Daniel* and the support worker who helped him describe how a Scottish community-based alternative to custody and secure care helped him turn his life around.
Daniel*, 21, describes how he was supported by the charity Includem:
“I don’t even know if I would be alive had it not been for Includem. I was drinking all the time and taking drugs, valium, cannabis, ecstasy. I was fighting a lot with my mum and other people and ‘doing turns’ – theft, breaking and entering offences – to get money to spend on food and clothes. Things started to go wrong when I left primary school and when I was about 12.
I had a bad relationship with my mum – we argued all the time – and I was constantly getting thrown out of the house. I had nowhere to go so ended up on the streets. I was always in front of children’s panels and going into temporary care and then home again.
I wasn’t happy and could see that this [drinking and taking drugs] wasn’t the right thing to do but it was what was happening in my life at the time. I felt guilty about what I was doing. I wanted things to change but didn’t now how to make changes. I wanted things to be normal and to have a normal family life.
A social worker referred me to Includem; I worked with a few project workers until I clicked with my project worker who became the person who I felt I could work with. We spoke about goals and how to get there and how I was worthy of a better life.
My worker helped me when things were really bad at home; I could call the helpline at any time and Includem would come out and talk to me and my mum and make it ok for me to stay at home. They would meet with me at times when no one else would be able to – at the weekend, when I needed them I would contact the helpline and they would be there.
Includem helped me stay at home and they helped me get into training and never gave up on me. I respected them and they respected me. I felt hopeful that things could be different. They helped with all sorts of things – planning how to spend money on food and clothes to helping with how to deal with bad situations at home and how to get training to help to get a job.
They were there through everything – even during the night – when I lived at home, when I was homeless and then moving into my own place. They made me think that I was worthwhile.
Before I would just go out and steal things to sell so that I could buy new clothes. I learnt how to save money and how to spend it on food so that I would last. They taught me how to deal with situations with my mum – how to walk away from violent situations and how to stay calm.
Things changed for me because my worker listened and respected me so I trusted and listened to my worker. I got on with her and established a relationship – I started to feel hopeful that things could change. Includem listened and didn’t give up on me, even at the start when I didn’t want to work with them.
Now I live with my daughter and girlfriend and I have my own home. I try hard to be a good dad that my daughter can be proud of – I want her to feel loved and cared for and safe. I want a routine for my family and my daughter and I am trying to find a job.”
Karen McCulloch, Includem project worker, on how she supported Daniel:
“Daniel was referred to Includem at the age of 15 due to his drug and alcohol misuse, anger, aggression, and difficult family relationships. He was a persistent high tariff offender and was facing homelessness due to a chaotic relationship with his mother.
When we meet a young person for the first time we listen to what they have to say and let them know what we can offer. We talk through their lives and identify the areas that aren’t working the way they should and start to look at how these could get better. We identity goals and talk to them about A Better Life – a unique toolkit that we use. We let them know we will meet them on a frequent basis and that we will plan normal social activities where we can meet and talk.
We let them know we put them first and they can trust us – that we want the best for them. Often this is a first for young people who haven’t had proper care in their lives or someone to talk to and look out for them.
We gave Daniel intensive support in managing his anger, including practical support on issues such as how to remove himself from volatile situations. Daniel’s relationship with his mother was difficult, and Includem worked with her to set clear and consistent boundaries within the home.
Daniel and his mother used Includem’s 24 hour helpline, not only at times of crisis but for advice and support. Includem supported Daniel for whilst he was on an electronic tag, a period in secure care for his own safety, and voluntary transitional support into adulthood. Throughout this time, Includem supported and liaised with Daniel’s mother to maintain their relationship.
Daniel didn’t gel with his first project worker so we changed workers to someone that Daniel clicked with. Our model is relationship based therefore we are flexible and will try different workers with different young people for the right relationship to be established.
My first visit to meet Daniel was on a Friday night when Daniel was out with his care home – Daniel had none of his own clothes so I went to his home and picked these up and took them to him. We visited him throughout the weekend and supported him. We talked about ways to change things – and assured Daniel that his life could change with the right support and direction. We put a plan in place that we would work through together in order to meet outcomes.
We started to see real changes. We taught Daniel to listen to his “inner speak” – the voice within that said he deserved a better life and that he could make it happen. When he started to realise that he did deserve better, and how to achieve it, things started to change.
Daniel used the 24/7 helpline regularly as a support – he would phone if he had been thrown out of the house or was in trouble. He would call if he was arguing with his mother – on one occasion an Includem worker would be speaking to Daniel on the phone in one room, another would be speaking to his mother on the phone in another room and a worker would be driving to the house to help calm the situation face to face.
Daniel would forget basic things such as when to eat as sometimes he was living between people’s houses – we would remind him that this was essential and give him practical support on what to eat and how to budget his money. We would plan our contact visits with him around when he would receive money and would take him to the supermarket and show him how to spend the money wisely and make it last.
Daniel moved into his own home under a mainstream tenancy at 19 (he is now 21), and is in a settled relationship and doing well. He has created his own family – he and his girlfriend have a baby, and there is no social work involvement with the family at all. Daniel has accrued no court charges or pending court charges for fouryears. He’s very keen to get a job. His partner is looking to start college and his main aim is to build on his progress and continue to provide a happy and loving environment for his child and partner.
We have a “scaffold of support” in place – a team of three – a project worker, an assistant project worker and a mentor – assigned to each young person so that they can build links and relationships with more than one person. Every service we provide is unique for that young person – we fit our service to them, not the other way round.
Among our successful outcomes is the fact that 90% of young people we worked with in a project with Strathclyde police reduced their violent offending. And with 72% of referrals from the Clackmannanshire area, Includem prevented family or community placement breakdown.
The biggest challenge is usually at the outset when young people are wary of accepting help and opening up about issues. Another challenge is actually meeting up with young people on planned visits at the start– often they don’t turn up for planned meetings and we have to go looking for them.
You learn to be creative in situations like this – finding solutions to challenges such as this and others – and speaking to colleagues for advice and ideas in order to make contact. We constantly refer to our A Better Life toolkit for support and advice.
Includem operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We accept any referrals via social work departments, courts and police. We never turn any vulnerable young person away – no matter what their situation is and how chaotic it may be.
‘Stickability’ is a word we have coined – it’s a key part of our service and is at the heart of what we do – we are persistent, we won’t give up on a young person and we will stick with them at all times during the support we give them.”
Raffle ticket seller Raana Salman at the Lantern Community open dayI’ve never thought of my sister, above, as a saleswoman – she can be engaging, encouraging, persuasive and talkative, but she’s never actually sold me anything other than an idea (usually about what film to watch; invariably a Bond movie).
So my family and I were impressed – and proud – to see Raana in marketing mode (above, resplendent with pot for raffle ticket cash) for the first time on Saturday (scroll down for a gallery of snapshots).
We spent the day with Raana at a fundraising fete and open day at the Lantern Community in Ringwood, Hampshire, where she lives and works.
Raana, along with some of her peers, formed a veritable raffle mafia – but not only was parting with cash in a good cause, it was impossible to say no when the ticket sellers assured you “this one’s a winner!” (this was clearly a sales spiel – neither I nor anyone in my family won a single thing…).
The open day in the Lantern’s grounds – with flowers, plants and fruit and veg in early autumnal bloom, stalls, food and live music – marked the opening of a new house, Silver Birches, for adults with learning disabilities. The day was also a celebration of the charity merger between the Lantern and Seahorses. Seahorses is four-star holiday accommodation on the Isle of Wight run by, with and for people with disabilities (as well as for those without) – a B&B with a bonus, as I explained in a recent Guardian piece.
From the fruit, vegetables and plants on sale and display to the bakery produce and the range of arts and crafts including pottery and woodwork, the day showcased the talents of a creative and inspiring group of people. And one of them, running from stall to stall with a book of pink tickets and a broad smile, refusing to stop to chat to me (“I’m busy! I’m working!”), was my saleswoman of a sister.
Talking to my eight-year-old daughter about the fact I was going to blog about our day with Raana, she immediately suggested a title for the story. It’s so neat and accurate, I think it rounds off the post and sums up the event perfectly: The Lantern Stars.
If you’ve spent any time on a beach this summer, you’ll know that a wheelchair isn’t a common sight on the sand. Unless, that is, the wheelchair belongs to 16-year-old James Smith, above.
James, who has duchenne muscular dystrophy, is, according to his family “a bit of a thrill seeker”. Tomorrow, coinciding with National Paralympic Day, James will steer his high-tech, all-terrain wheelchair through a sandy obstacle course in Tynemouth to raise awareness about beach accessibility.
James Smith in his all-terrain wheelchair in Tynemouth
Saturday’s Longsands Beach Challenge – what organisers say is the first ever beach wheelchair event of its kind – will see disabled and able-bodied participants negotiate a beach-based race circuit.
North Tyneside council has given permission for the event to take place and is supporting the “beaches for all” campaign. The aim is to have power beach chairs available for loan at the beach all year round.
The event is being organised by two companies, Dolphin Lifts and Mobility and Shape Adaptations. Shape director Stephen Smith is James’ father – he was inspired to organise the event by his son.
The free event runs between 10am-4pm on Saturday with races on the hour and prizes for the winners.
* A separate event in London tomorrow marks a year since the Paralympics; artist Rachel Gadsden (whose powerful, awareness-raising work has previously featured on this blog) and artistic director and choreographer Marc Brew present a free new show for National Paralympic Day and Liberty Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The show is called Cube of Curiosity. Image from the Cube of Curiosity
A postcard designed for a new disability awareness campaign launched today. “Each fruit on my tree of life displays a message for me to follow. This helps me to mature and develop”, says its creator Cameron, 18.
How many people aspire to be ordinary? Success is usually defined success as standing out from the crowd, being the focus of attention or doing something extraordinary.
But Shairaz’s wish is different.
Shairaz wants to be regarded as ordinary because, as he says, he and his peers are usually regarded as scroungers or superheroes.
Shiraz, who has a learning disability, says of the stereotypical perception of disabled people: “We shouldn’t only be portrayed when we do something amazing or something bad. We should also be portrayed when we are doing ordinary things. Most of us are not scroungers. It’s the government that has decided to offer us support, it’s not us begging. Many people can’t work and that’s not their fault, we shouldn’t be called scroungers.”
Shiraz is taking part in a new campaign launched today by the social care charity United Response. Along with a survey and a new report on attitudes to disability, there is an art project and exhibition from next week, Postcards From The Edges which focuses on the everyday lives and achievements of disabled people (see the examples on this page, view more on the charity’s dedicated project site and via this Guardian gallery).
The survey, report and artworks coincide with National Paralympic Day on Saturday, marking a year since the Paralympics – but the event’s impact may be fading, according to United Response’s survey. The aim of the survey, report and art project is to transform how the public sees disabled people.
For example, two thirds of the 1000 people surveyed say they see more disabled people in the real world than in the media, while four out of five say that the public does not know enough about disability.
While the research shows the Paralympics was a memorable event – Ellie Simmonds’ four gold medals is named as the best memory by 31% of respondents – less than one in five of respondents could name a disabled person who has become well-known in the year since the Paralympics. Meanwhile, 40% found it difficult to name a well known physically disabled person and only one in five could name a person with a learning disability.
The postcards, many of which will be showcased in an exhibition at Bankside Gallery in London, complements this research. The charity asked people – well-known or “ordinary”, with or without disabilities – to write or draw cards in any creative style. The only proviso was that the card design in some way responded to the question: “What do you want to tell the world?”.
United Response has collated the cards over the last eight months and the results – more than 550 pieces of art – are a snapshot of thoughts, hopes, fears, ambitions and everyday experiences of a wide range of people. There are submissions from older people with mental health needs, parents of children with autism, people with physical disabilities, children and social workers. Among the postcard designers are Paralympians Hannah Cockroft and Dame Sarah Storey, Olympian Sally Gunnell, Suede singer Brett Anderson and actor Emma Thompson.
An awareness-raising postcard by Scott, 19, from Staffordshire: ““My postcard is to try and educate people about autism and how others can be ignorant towards the condition”.
The report from the charity’s campaigns panel (which Shairaz is a member of) underlines the messages from the survey and the art project. The publication, Superhumans or Scroungers, reveals the gap between the portrayal of the superhuman Paralympians and media coverage of disabled people.
“We shouldn’t be portrayed in just one light, as superheroes or scroungers,” says Shairaz about the report. “People should know more about our lives overall… I would just like to see us portrayed more as ordinary people. Yes we’re special in some ways, but so is everyone. It would be good to see television not just concentrating on our disability but on who we are and what matters to us, like the place we live. That would give everyone a chance to learn from different experiences and that might help everyone to stop generalising.”
The aim of the report and panel, Shairaz adds, is “to make people more aware of what disability is about…A lot of people have the wrong impression of people with disabilities. They think disabled people are all the same and should be classed under one branch. They don’t understand hidden disabilities, like my mental disability. A lot of people think that people with mental disabilities are crazy or stupid, but that’s not true.
“People make assumptions because they don’t understand. So I think the panel is about helping people understand and also telling them that we have rights and views and opinions. Our opinions count as much as able people’s opinions.”
The report stresses that media coverage of disability tends to focus on people with physical disabilities, meaning that people with learning disabilities, autism, mental health needs and other hidden disabilities are “almost invisible”.
Shairaz and his fellow campaigns panel members also worry about the growth in news stories about welfare with, as the report states, a simplistic representation of disability creating “a polarisation of who is ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of support”. The report explains, “it means there is very little attention given to ordinary disabled people or the positive contributions that they make”.
The postcards project ties into this, says Shairaz, because it offers people a wider vision of disability and of the achievements of disabled people in a positive, creative way. He adds: “It’s also good to tell people your experience, but nice to do it in a fun way… Life isn’t always serious and spilling your heart out. When people ask about my life I don’t say “Oh, I just mope about and feel sorry for myself”, I say I have fun too.”
Su Sayer, United Response’s chief executive co-founded the organisation 40 years ago when it was the norm for people with learning disabilities to be hidden away in large institutions. She adds: “While the last four decades have seen huge changes for many people with learning disabilities, there is still widespread prejudice and lack of understanding from the broader public. Many people still don’t understand much about disability or the lives of disabled people, let alone their achievements.”
A postcard by Yvonne J Foster, an artist living with depression: “I have depression and sometimes I am so overwhelmed with strong emotions that my body collapses.”Postcard by artist Yvonne J Foster: “Sometimes I cannot cope with reality. It’s not safe for me to remember things that have happened so I create a safe place for myself in my head.”Postcard by artist Yvonne J Foster: “Psychiatric hospital shouldn’t have such a stigma. I was admitted twice last year and it was the safest place I could have been at the time”.
Sayer adds that the two extremes of how disabled people are portrayed – lionised as superhuman or criticised as scroungers – is “far, far from the reality of the overwhelming majority of disabled people today…’ordinary’ disabled people are still very absent from public life”.
Shairaz agrees. “It’s important to know that it’s not just the people who can do great things at sport who are important,” he says. “Everyone is a hero in themselves. My girlfriend says I can be a hero sometimes, because of the support I give her.”
* The Postcards from the Edges exhibition opens at Bankside Gallery in London on Tuesday 10 September and runs until Sunday 15 September. It will be followed by a showcase at the Sage in Gateshead (1- 4 October), the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol (private view on the evening of 23 September) and the Camp and Furnace Gallery in Liverpool (4-10 November).
* Find out more about the project by visiting the Postcards website.
Kevin Preen and Michael Edwards embark on their campaign to raise awareness about travel and learning disability
Public transport – by definition involves “buses, trains, and other forms of transport that are available to the public, charge set fares, and run on fixed routes”. While the network is meant to be for the use of the general public, a significant section of that population – people with a learning disability – faces challenges when using the system.
While people with a physical disability are often literally unable to get onto vehicles, someone with a learning disability might be physically capable of stepping onto a train, but might find the system as a whole impossible to negotiate.
My sister, for example, likes using buses, trains or Tubes but it would be impossible for her to safely work her way round any of those modes of transport alone; her anxiety would leave her rooted to the spot and she’d be unable to cope with making sense of the numerous changes and confusing timetables..multiple folded leaflets, tiny print, lots of abbreviations..forget it, it’s difficult enough for the rest of us, let alone someone with Fragile X syndrome. So her journeys are accompanied or she’s driven from A to B by us but for other people with learning disabilities, there are not many other options for getting about.
Take Kevin Preen, without public transport, he says he would be “stuck in doors all day”. Kevin, 52, has a learning disability and Perthes’ disease, which led to a hip replacement when he was seven-years-old.
Kevin is supported by and is a peer-advocate for Oxford-based learning disability charity My Life My Choice (he has also represented Oxfordshire’s learning disabled community at the National Forum). He is now spearheading a travel and transport campaign for My Life My Choice during Learning Disability Week, which starts today.
The 52-year-old, who is currently awaiting an Atos assessment for work capacity, adds”: “Without public transport…I could make a few short journeys a week by taxi but I couldn’t afford to do much.”
His awareness-raising mission, known as the End to End trip, involves Kevin and a fellow peer advocate, Michael Edwards, travelling by train from John O’Groats to Lands End to highlight the importance of public transport to learning disabled people amid the cuts.The social exclusion often faced by people with learning disabilities is being exacerbated by the cuts as day services close and public transport becomes even more important in boosting people’s independence.
Kevin adds: “It will be a new experience. I’m getting excited about meeting people on the train and raising awareness of how important public transport is to people with learning disabilities”
Kevin and his fellow “transport champion” Michael will stay in B&B’s and hotels along the route with travel passes issued by train firm First Great Western. Accompanied by the charity’s champions coordinator Dan Harris – who will be capturing their journey online – the aim is to record the good and bad aspects of the trip. Dan adds that even if the experience involves getting on the wrong train, “as long as it isn’t going to seriously impact our journey, it would be good to capture that and explore the challenges that led to the mistake”.
Michael, 59, who has very limited vision, epilepsy and a learning disability. He lives with his brother who acts as his carer. Michael helped found the self-help charity and is a trustee of My Life My Choice. He says: “Trains bring me a lot of pleasure. I have been planning my own routes and taking trips as far away as Devon for 15 years. I’ve been watching trains on platforms since 1967…I like trains, I’ve got myself a hobby.”
According to the charity, among the main travel issues faced by the people it supports is the difficulty in being unable to understand timetables and dealing with confusing platform changes. Kevin, for example, once ended up getting on a train heading for Penzance instead of his home area of Oxford because of making a wrong platform change. Another major problem is that of bullying on public transport.
Bus and train drivers are also not always aware of the needs of disabled passengers. Just last month, for example, Jackie, who is also supported by My Life My Choice was travelling independently on a bus. On boarding, the driver asked her to reverse her wheel chair into the disabled space, but didn’t give her time to reverse before moving off. The jolt as he pulled away meant Jackie’s jacket got caught and tore. She pressed the bell well in advance of her stop but the bus driver didn’t stop until she was past where she wanted to get off (he told her she hadn’t pressed the bell well enough in advance).
The End to End trip schedule takes in Glasgow, Manchester, Swansea and Paddington before arriving in Land’s End on Sunday August 25th. In each place, the travel champions will meet local learning disability organisations.
My Life My Choice hopes to publish an easy read document about learning disability and public transport as a result of the End to End campaign and you can follow the trip on Twitter.
* More information about the trip can be found on the charity’s website and you can view a gallery of photographs about the trip here here.
A resident of Hinnerup Kollegiet, a Danish community of older people with autism (pic: Hinnerup Kollegiet)
Timothy Baron was among the first children in the UK to be diagnosed with autism just over 50 years ago. Timothy was in need of specialist education but autistic children then had no right to schooling, so his father, Michael, opened his own school, the movement became the Society for Autistic Children – now the National Autistic Society (NAS).
That was the 1960s; today, Timothy, who lives in residential care, is nearing 60. The first generation of children to be diagnosed with autism is now moving into older age. Ageing with autism brings not only the particular challenges of the condition – communication, social interaction or sensory issues – but the social, physical and mental health issues often experienced in old age.
Policymakers are aware of the impact on society of the ageing population, but the same focus has not been given to people with learning disabilities and autism.
Read the rest of my piece about the need for more work on autism and growing older in the Guardian’s social care pages.
It’s not the first pairing of the Beatles and Shakespeare, and nor is it unique for making the work of the bard more accessible, both in the theatre and in print. But it is among the most unusual and inspiring.
Students at Gosden House special educational needs school near Guildford will today perform an interactive version of Twelfth Night, influenced by and including music from the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. An inclusive performance for a young audience with complex learning difficulties, it aims to transform the audience into members of the Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a Shakespearean twist.
Globe Education runs theatre workshops at Godsen House school
The show marks 10 years of an arts education partnership between the school and the educational arm of Shakespeare’s Globe – the first production a decade ago was Romeo and Juliet.
For the last few weeks, Globe Education education staff have visited the school to work with students and teachers and prepare for today’s show (the 10 year anniversary coincides with the retirement of Godsen headteacher and Beatles fan Jon David).
The event is billed as an “eclectic mix of Shakespeare and Sgt Pepper” and students have been involved in creating five original songs while others will be playing music as part of a live band at the start and end of the play. The children themselves become Shakespeare’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
For Globe Education, the partnership has enabled practitioners to develop similar practices within the Southwark community where the theatre is based. The Globe is also involved in putting on relaxed performances which I’m a big fan of, and is training practitioners to work people on the autism spectrum.
For today, however, the focus is on Godsen’s talented students. To use the words of Lennon and McCartney in Sgt Pepper, “they’re guaranteed to raise a smile”.
It’s no surprise that soul singer Lizzie Emeh has called her forthcoming second album See Me: “I want people to see me and accept me as I am. I want people to see me as a disabled person with no limits, no barriers, no name tags. I want to inspire other people with disabilities, for them to say– if she can do that, so can we. People with disabilities are always told, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I want to change all that!”
Lizzie became the first person with a learning disability to release an album in 2009, now she hopes to complete her second, breaking new ground by using crowdfunding to produce it. Lizzie’s first album, Loud and Proud, took three years to make, produced with the support of arts organisation Heart n Soul, which she is still working with.
Lizzie, who was never expected to walk or talk following complications at birth, has performed at Number 10 and at the London 2012 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony. She is hoping for more donations ahead of her crowd funding deadline for donations on Saturday – this week has been the final push for support. You can find out more and see Lizzie talking about her work and what her second album means to her here.
Heart n Soul’s long-running multimedia club night Beautiful Octopus takes place on Friday 13 September on London’s Southbank, with live performances, DJs and “interactive zones” where the audience can participate in the music, dance and other art-related events and activities showcased.
* To donate to Lizzie’s campaign for her second album, see this link
The government’s plan to slash £220m from the UK’s legal aid budget has rightly been condemned for its sweeping scale but, in this series of interviews I’ve done for the Guardian, the very human impact – the effect on the individual – is laid bare.
Under the proposals, victims of miscarriages of justice like Gerry Conlon, one of the Guilford Four, or Mark Neary, who fought his local council’s decision to send his son into care 300 miles away from home, would never have brought their cases before the courts.
Legal aid, and the individual’s right to challenge authority and unfair decisions is a bedrock of the British legal system, often described as “the envy of the world“. Dismantle that foundation, and, as the people and families I spoke to for today’s piece make clear, you increase the likelihood of wrongful convictions and greater unrest among the prison population, and you give the authorities carte blanche to bring in sweeping changes (to welfare, for example) with impunity.
The government’s Transforming Legal Aid proposals include new competitive tendering of solicitors’ contracts and a fixed fee system which, say lawyers, will preclude many from bidding for work and force them out of the market. The government will also prevent prisoners from using legal aid to challenge their treatment inside (see the words of ex-offender Leroy Skeete in the Guardian piece to see what effect this could have) and a new residency test will withhold legal aid from trafficking victims or those recently arrived in the UK who suffer domestic abuse.
Justice secretary Chris Grayling is due to give evidence this morning to the justice select committee regarding the price competitive tendering proposals in his Transforming Legal Aid consultation.
As reported, Grayling has said in a statement: “I have always been clear this is a genuine consultation and I will continue to listen to views.” (He may listen – but will he act on what he hears?) He may be dropping his plans to remove defendants’ rights to choose their own solicitor but, while the safeguarding of choice is welcome, that choice is useless if the pool from which to chose dries up. In addition, if the system is so restricted under the changes that would-be claimants don’t get permission to launch appeal cases anyway, they won’t even get as far as having to make a choice.
Below are two more testimonies which explain just what a difference legal aid makes – and what would happen if the changes go through:
Blessing (not her real name), 36, a domestic worker from Nigeria:
“My employers hadn’t paid me properly, or paid any tax, for the nine months I worked for them. I was paid £250 a month and worked seven days a week. I never had rest days or fixed hours. They called me to work at any time. I normally started working at 7am and would work until after 11pm as my employers would return home late and expect me to cook for them.
During the day I looked after their children and cooked and cleaned. At the weekends I also had to clean my employers’ business. It was hard work and I had no life of my own.
Legal aid helped me to go to court for an employment tribunal and win. I won my claim to be paid the national minimum wage for my work.
Without legal aid I wouldn’t have got anything. I didn’t know how to help myself. I didn’t know about my rights in the UK until I went to Kalayaan, which advises migrant domestic workers. They explained my rights to me and were able to find me a lawyer to take my case.
My case shows that domestic work is real work and that work in a private household should have proper hours and be fairly paid – like any work.
The proposed residency test under the legal aid changes will stop people like me from getting help [the proposals mean applicants need to be lawfully resident in the UK and to have lived here continuously for at least a year at some stage]. This is on top of new immigration rules that mean domestic workers are given a tied migrant domestic worker visa, the rules of which also makes getting help impossible [the visa means migrant domestic staff in private households cannot change employer or stay longer than six months].
Employers will be able to treat these workers however they like as they will know that they won’t be able to challenge any mistreatment. Many are not paid at all for many months work in the UK. With no legal aid they won’t be able to do anything about this.”
Tracey Lazard of deaf and disabled people’s organisation Inclusion Tracey Lazard, chief executive Inclusion London, a pan-London Deaf and disabled peoples organisation:
“Disabled people need access to justice now more than ever.
Entitlements to independent living and social care are being dismantled and reduced and the right to challenge is through judicial review – and that, to all intents and purposes, is going to be removed [the reforms make it harder to bring a judicial review].
Increasingly, local authorities are – in order to make budgets work – squeezing individual care packages…it’s only when a disabled person’s legal aid lawyer threatens the local authority with action, do we see them carrying out statutory duties.
It’s less likely that public bodies will be held to account [under the reforms] and in this climate of frenzied cuts, that’s more important than ever. Judicial review is a key challenge to ensure that public bodies meet their duties under the Equalities Act and due regard is paid to vulnerable groups.
Without legal aid funded judicial reviews, the recent work capability assessment and bedroom tax policies wouldn’t have been challenged.
We’ll have a huge percentage of the population without redress, and that is a dangerous system to be in.”
*Previous posts on legal aid can be found here and here
Daniel*, 21, describes how he was supported by the charity 
Karen McCulloch, Includem project worker, on how she supported Daniel:
