Category Archives: Learning disability

Learning disability, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized

Streetwise: building the confidence of vulnerable people

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For Streetwise course participant Peter Lomas, the harassment came in the form of kids throwing stones. Another participant on Peter’s course had been so shaken by the shouting and swearing she faced when getting a bus that she was too scared to leave her own home. Others had been conned by people they thought were friends who persuaded them to lend them money they then never saw again.

Bullying of people with learning disabilities can take many forms. According to the charity Mencap, as many as nine out of 10 nationally have been a victim of some form of hate crime or harassment.

That’s why Connect in the North, a Leeds-based organisation led by people with learning disabilities, has been running Streetwise, a tailor-made course to boost the confidence and independence of people with learning disabilities who might be vulnerable to harassment.

The course, which ran last summer and is being provided again this August, it’s run in the summer to allow people who go to college to attend. It brings participants together in a supportive atmosphere to talk through strategies for staying safe when they’re out and about in the city.

In the gaps between the four sessions, held once a week, those on the course are encouraged to go by themselves and then report back on their experiences, with their goals very much tailored to their own experience and capacity so that they are not putting themselves at risk. It’s a simple idea, but an effective one.

For, as Connect in the North consultant and trainer Sarah Wheatley explains, even just a little bit more independence can make a huge difference to people’s lives.
“Some people went from always being met by their support worker at home to meeting them at the bus stop,” she says, “that might not look like big progress but that was incredible for them, that they were starting to get independent. And one woman who had been so knocked back by her awful experience of abuse said on the last day she was going to go to the theatre with a friend and get the bus there herself. She did it.”

A report published by Connect in the North last year showed that, among the successful outcomes experienced by 22 people on the course, one person who often got lost planned and practiced a new journey, another travelled in taxis without support while others used buses, train and a coach for the first time.

Being on the receiving end of verbal abuse – or worse – can be incredibly frightening, But it’s also the fear of the unknown which can prevent people with learning disabilities from getting out on their own. “It’s things like who do you go to if you get horribly lost,” says Sarah. “It’s about building strategies to keep safe rather than thinking the only person I can call on is my support worker or the police. So if you’re on the bus and you miss the stop, then you could just go round again. And in Leeds we’ve got a Safe Places scheme, so there are shops and other buildings people can go in if they’re lost or need help.”

Streetwise also addresses the issue of “mate crime”, an all-too common experience for those with learning disabilities. “It’s the biggest risk – there are probably more cases than somebody being abused,” says Sarah. “People will pretend to be their friend and then borrow money and not pay it back. It’s about teaching the people on the course that that is not all right and they are worth more than that.”

It’s a sad fact that with social care resources ever more stretched, the one-to-one support available for people with learning disabilities for activities deemed non-essential is unlikely to increase any time soon. But who can put a value on being able to take a stroll to the shops or a bus trip to a community get-together?

Peter, who’s one of the directors of Connect in the North, relishes his own independence and is a powerful advocate for the Streetwise model after being on the course himself. “I’d tell anyone it’s a good thing to do,” he says. “It tells you what is safe and not safe.”

Disability, Learning disability, Music & arts, Uncategorized

Lizzie: people should see me with no limits, no barriers, no name tags

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Lizzie in the studio
Lizzie in the studio

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.

Singer Lizzie Emeh

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

Disability, Employment, Learning disability, Third sector

“Ah the whiff of that bread!”: my sister the baker

Raana (left, centre) and her fellow bakers hard at work in the Lantern Bakery
Raana (left, centre) and her fellow bakers hard at work in the Lantern Bakery

My talented sister and her colleagues allowed us to document a day in their working lives at the Lantern Bakery based at the Camphill community where she lives. The bakery offers work and training to people with learning disabilities. You can watch and listen to the talented team of bakers in this Guardian audio slideshow we created after our visit.

There’ll be more from the bakers of Camphill on this blog in the next week or so – they really are an inspiring, welcoming and talented bunch of people and work in what has to be one of the buzziest bakeries I’ve ever been to (listen to the audio slideshow – especially my sister’s numerous interjections – and you’ll see what I mean..).

For now, however, the slideshow photographs and the words of the bakers themselves speak volumes and do a better job than I could in a long piece of writing to reflect the bakery’s ethos and prove why schemes like this are so vital. Plus they make the most amazing things so, I’d like leave the last word to my sister, “ahhh the whiff of that bread!”

Cuts, Disability, Health, Learning disability, Local government, Third sector, Uncategorized

Ordinary residence, extraordinary mess

“Disabled people in residential care who want to live more independently are being prevented from doing so by funding wrangles between local authorities” – that’s taken from a piece I wrote three years ago, but since then little has changed.

The original piece is on the Guardian website:

"Caught in a trap: disabled people can't move out of care", The Guardian October 2010
“Caught in a trap: disabled people can’t move out of care”, The Guardian October 2010

Here’s the mess: an individual’s “ordinary residence” is usually in his or her original local authority area, so if a council places someone in residential care outside the area, it remains financially responsible.

But when someone decides to move from that residential care in the new area into supported accommodation within the same (ie “new”) area, their original authority argues that it is no longer responsible for funding. However, the new authority – where the person actually lives – argues against funding someone not originally from the area. The result – limbo.

Confusing? Not really, what it boils down to is that councils are passing the buck over people’s care, effectively dictating where people should live -and all the while, individuals themselves appear to have no say. And quibbling over the care bill will only get worse as local authority cuts continue to bite.

I’ve been involved in a piece of work published today by social care organisation Voluntary Organisations Disability Group. The VODG has previously demanded action to resolve such ordinary residence dilemmas and, this time, it argues that the Care Bill offers ample opportunity to finally tackle the challenge. The new briefing, Ordinary residence, extraordinary mess, is available from the VODG website, with this post outlining how the situation has become “business as usual” in many areas.

One way forward, which the bill could accommodate, is strengthening the duty on local authorities to cooperate with providers and with each other to prevent delays in funding when people want to move from one care setting to another. The Epilepsy Society, for example, which contributed to today’s publication, estimates that in the last three years it has covered gaps in fees totalling £350,000 and “staff time involved in chasing fees over the same period has amounted to approximate 340 days across all departments including senior and service managers, finance and administrative staff”.

Here’s just one story from today’s publication, from a social care provider in central England:
“Joe moved out of residential care into supported living accommodation nearby, run by the same charity provider. Council A, where Joe is now ordinarily resident, is refusing to take over funding from Council B which had previously paid his out of county residential care fees. Some 14 months later, the social care provider (a medium sized charity) is owed nearly £50,000 from Council A for this one client. Members of the charity’s finance team chase Council A each week and include copies of previous correspondence and agreements. Council A continues to delay payments, giving the provider different reasons for not paying and passes the query around different council departments. The charity has continued to provide care and covered this gap in fees.”

While the powers-that-be seem unwilling to either acknowledge the scale of the problem or indeed have the confidence to untangle the mess, vulnerable people across the country remain in limbo, unable to move to the place of their choice because of bureaucratic wrangles.

As Anna McNaughton’s mother told me three years ago: “All Anna wants is to live in a suitable home – it’s a basic human need, not a luxury.” It’s a desperate situation that three years on, her words still have the same resonance.

Education, Employment, Learning disability, Social exclusion, Uncategorized

Jenny’s job, and why we need more like it

Jenny Dimmock at work, City Hospital, Sunderland (pic: Positive Negatives)
Jenny Dimmock at work in the pathology lab (pic: Positive Negatives)
Jenny Dimmock works in a pathology lab. She and her scientist colleagues handle between 3,000-4,000 blood samples a day. The 21-year-old is also an ambassador for younger students, speaking about her experiences at conferences, like how part of her job involves placing specimens on a robot. Handling the robot, however, as her workmates say, is probably the easiest part of her working life.

Jenny, who has Down’s syndrome, trained on the job with the Project Choice scheme at City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust before she won her paid post.

As colleagues point out, while she was learning about the intricacies of the path lab, she was also learning about everyday practicalities like getting to and from her job on time or how to interact in the workplace. This week, her achievements are recognised with an award to celebrate Adult Learners’ Week this week.

We are more used to hearing about the failings of the NHS when it comes to its treatment of people with a learning disability. Only today the NHS ombudsman outlined the catalogue of mistakes which contributed to the death of Tina Papalabropoulos, a young woman with physical and learning disabilities.

In March, the government’s Confidential Inquiry into premature deaths of people with learning disabilities found that 37% of deaths of people with a learning disability who died between 1 June 2010 and 31 May 2012 in the South West of England were avoidable. Put bluntly, patients with a learning disability died whilst they were supposed to be receiving treatment from the NHS.

If attitudes are to change among organisations which fail the vulnerable, one way forward is to make them more inclusive as employers so they reflect individuals from all walks of life. It’s one thing to stick up a learning disability awareness sign to help staff recognise vulnerable patients – as I spotted in my local hospital (it’s a good start) – but it’s entirely another to have people with learning disabilities on your radar as potential work experience students, interns or trainees.

Public sector organisations especially are encouraged to be more inclusive and diverse through their board membership and recruitment policies, with the Equality Act binding organisations to develop a more diverse workforce and uphold equal rights. But people with learning disabilities are one of most overlooked groups in the labour market with most employers unaware of – or perhaps put off by – the kind of support that learning disabled employees might need.

As Mencap points out in its campaigning material, people with a learning disability are more excluded from the workplace than any other group of disabled people. According to Mencap, less than one in five people with a learning disability work (compared with one in two disabled people in general), but at least 65% of people with a learning disability want to work. Of those people with a learning disability that do work, most only work part time and are low paid. Just one in three people with a learning disability take part in education and/or training.

Project Choice in Sunderland shows what can happen when employers take a more inclusive approach to recruitment and training. The scheme aims to provide work-based learning and experience for young people with learning disabilities.

The project starts with 16-21-year olds doing half a day a week work experience for six weeks. Students have one to one sessions with a mentor to help develop an understanding of the world of work. Next is an unpaid internship for four days a week in a work place and one day in college. Students, who can have up to three placements in the year, again have a named mentor and progress to working independently. Learning is reinforced in the classroom and interns undertake a work qualification like a Foundation Learning Programme or NVQ.

The final part of the scheme is, hopefully, an apprenticeship, job – as Jenny has proved – or further learning.

Jenny started with work experience under Project Choice and did an internship in 2010 when she left school. She spent a year as an intern in three departments: on a clinical ward where, among other things, she used her sign language skills to communicate with deaf patients, then in the hospital pharmacy and in the laboratory. She learnt on the job but also had one day a week at college learning about things like employment health and safety. As she says, “I have had amazing times since starting my work experience and have fulfilled my ambition of getting a permanent job.”

Project Choice isn’t, of course, the only supported employment scheme of its kind but it’s a pathway to work and training in a sector not usually open to people with learning disabilities. It’s the kind of scheme that can change attitudes both within healthcare and in wider society. We just need more like it.

* New figures released for Adult Learners’ Week, which ends on Friday, showed that the proportion of young people aged 17 – 24 taking part in learning has fallen by seven percentage points in the last year. There has also been a fall of six percentage points in the proportion of unemployed people participating in learning. The survey for NIACE interviewed 5,253 adults, aged 17 and over, in the UK 13 February–3 March 2013.

Disability, Health, Learning disability, Social care, Third sector, Wellbeing, Young people

Tailor-made technology: systems and support in social care

Julie Heightley was so worried about her son Thomas suffering an epileptic fit at night that for two years she slept on a camp bed outside his room. The broken sleep and constant supervision of Thomas, who has autism and global developmental delay, was adversely affecting both Julie’s role as a carer and any prospect of independence for her son.

I came across Julie and Thomas’ story while researching a new report published today by the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group and the National Care Forum.

Now, thanks to a discrete network of wireless sensors dotted around the four-bedroom family home just outside Wolverhampton, Julie and Thomas, now five, are enjoying what Julie calls “a new lease of life”. Since the home was kitted out with the assistive technology two years ago, Thomas has been able to safely play and walk about the house independently without needing his mother’s 24-hours-a-day supervision. As well as having a slightly more hands-off approach to her five-year-old, Julie, a lone parent, has more time to spend her two older children who are in their teens.

Julie and Thomas with his older siblings
Julie and Thomas with his older siblings

Assistive – or personalised – technology includes a wide-range of supportive but unobtrusive services and equipment, from personal alarms for elderly people, to seizure monitors and more sophisticated fingerprint recognition systems that allow you to open the door without keys. It can also include computer software, hand held devices or video call systems that increase social interaction and family contact.

As fans of such services and systems point out, the traditional view of this technology is that it involves a medical and prescriptive approach (see the comments on the related VODG blogpost), but the key issue is to bring it to the consumer market, widen its use among the general public and raise awareness about its potential.

As the publication stresses, the social care sector has embraced a huge amount of innovation in assistive technology, using new methods to complement the physical work of support staff. it is transforming lives for the better. But the use of such services, systems and equipment does not enjoy the higher profile of our counterparts in the health sector, despite the fact it is entirely in line with the “person-centred” approach that care providers are working towards and encourages choice, control and independence – social care watchwords.

Today’s report, with its real life stories of how technology is transforming the lives of vulnerable people, aims to change that: “Put simply, technology is part of our modern landscape. We use it for work, leisure, at home and on the move. It makes our lives easier. People with life-long disabilities or age related conditions should share that experience, benefitting from the advantages that tailor-made technological support can bring.”

* Read more on the VODG website and download the report Using assistive technology to support personalisation in social care

Disability, Education, Learning disability, Social care, Third sector, Uncategorized

“It’s important that while I’m having fun, Stanley is having a great time too”

Stanley Holes is, says his little brother Albie in the brief video diary above, simply “the best brother I could ever have.” Albie’s love for his 16-year-old brother is reflected in this short film which I just watched and wanted to share. Produced for Autism Wessex, the charity that supports Stanley, it stands out for me because it’s presented from a sibling’s perspective: “I love him very much,” says 11-year-old Albie of his teenage brother, “and he is very important to me and my family.”

Diagnosed with autism at three, with no speech and, as Albie says, “little understanding of the world that surrounds him”, Stanley hadn’t been to an autism-specifc setting until last year when he started Autism Wessex’s Portfield School in Dorset. Underlining the vital need for autism-specific support, only now is Stanley receiving proper speech and language therapy – and he’s thriving on the specialist care and education. In one of the previous schools he was at, his family was told that as Stanley was autistic, there was no point in him getting speech therapy since his condition made communication impossible.

Stanley was regarded as a child whose behaviour challenges, his complex needs mean he is prone to anger and violent outbursts (“episodes”, as Albie explains in the film). Yet his story shows that even in complex cases, positive outcomes are possible.

Stanley has started to shows more awareness of his surroundings, and is becoming more independent, using signing with more confidence. Younger brother Albie, meanwhile, is more assured about talking to people about his older brother and how autism affects him and his family’s life.

Stanley’s family realised after a few short months that he seemed much happier at his new school compared to previous special needs environments; as Albie says in the film, “It’s important for me to know that while I’m having fun, Stanley is having a great time too.”

Stanley is a weekly boarder at Portfield, coming home for the weekend, where Albie his parents, plus fellow siblings Mabel, 15, and Elsie, 7, are keen to spend time with him. Before starting at the school, as their father Paul says, Stanley’s behaviour was having an adverse impact on his siblings. Now, says Paul, the change in the family dynamic and in Stanley is “the difference between living and existing”.

Disability, Employment, Learning disability, Social care, Uncategorized

“People who have a learning disability have the right to good services, choices and a good life”

If only more people had the chance to develop in confidence like Laura Minett.

Laura, who I interviewed for a Guardian social care piece today, works as an expert by experience. Her part-time role through the charity which supports her, Choice Support, means monitoring and inspecting social care services on behalf of social care watchdog the Care Quality Commission. The self-assurance she has developed thanks to the job means that when I misspelt her surname during our interview, she politely – but firmly – asked for my pen so that she could write it out for me herself.

Laura, who has a learning disability, told me she is driven by helping improve support for people who may be less independent than her. As she says in today’s piece in the Guardian: “I like getting out and about meeting people and thinking ‘maybe that’s good maybe that’s bad’. I like having a job and talking to the service users – it’s about their quality of life.”

The views of people who use social and health care services are so often not taken into account, something which a major inquiry into health treatment of people with learning disabilities found this week. Involving people who use services in improving the health and social care sector is vital, but so often consultation is nothing more than lip service.

Not so with the experts programme it seems. Another expert I met, Laura Broughton, stressed that paid work and the recognition that her opinion is valuable has made a huge difference to her life. Both the experts explained they have spotted things that could be improved in residential care (simple things, even, like offering people a better choice of food and drink) and told me that individuals in care tell them their concerns or wishes much more freely than they would a professional or full-time inspector without their personal experience.

Laura Broughton volunteering at London 2012
Laura Broughton volunteering at London 2012

She has been an expert for just two years, but already speaks in public and to social care professionals about her role. She walked into our meeting relaxed and confident. “I was quite different before doing this,” Laura told me. “I’d never had job before, certainly not in offices, I was more shy. Now I’ve done the experts work, Choice Support is getting me involved in slightly different things as well. I’m training [Choice Support staff and CQC inspectors] and have done presentations and workshops. It’s exciting…I’m travelling quite a lot and getting to know the country.”

Here is some more from the two experts in their own words, which both women previously shared on the CQC and Choice Support websites.

Laura Minett
Laura Minett
Laura Minett: “If someone said, “What is an expert by experience?” I would answer that I am a person who has a disability and who has first hand experience of using services provided by both health providers and social care providers. I use my experience to talk to others to find out what they think about the care they are getting and if it is good enough for each individual using the service.
I work with different inspectors and have already visited lots of different services like hospitals, a residential college, care homes, assessment and treatment units and secure units. I have recently been part of inspection teams involved in the National Review of Learning Disability services.
My main job is to find out about people’s experiences of the care they receive. The inspector tells me which of the 16 outcomes I need to prepare questions on to ask on the inspection. We arrange a meeting time for the day and go to the service unannounced. This means the provider doesn’t know we are coming. I use my experience to find out what they think about the care they are getting and if it is good enough for each individual using the service.”

Laura Broughton
Laura Broughton
Laura Broughton: “Being part of this review was a good experience for me. It gave me the experience of what it is really like for other people who have a learning disability. What happened at Winterbourne View was terrible and should have never happened.
Working as part of a team with inspectors was exciting. The work was exciting but difficult too. Sometimes some of the places I visited were not pleasing , they were challenging.
Some of the people I met should have more help in getting a better life. They were often bored and distressed and staff talked to them not as adults but as though they were children. Some of the people weren’t treated as individuals and certainly not in a person centred way. I felt some people didn’t get the opportunities they should have because they couldn’t speak or because others felt their behaviour was challenging.
It was good for me because I’m now a lot more confident, I’ve got a paid job as an Expert by Experience. Having a paid job is new for me as it is with a lot of people who have a learning difficulty.
I have a voice and I was able to help other people living in these services to have a voice.
I hope things will change. All people who have a learning disability have the right to good safe services, choices and a good life.”

Learning disability, Music & arts, Uncategorized

Panto and parity

Happy New Year – and seeing as we’ve just had panto season (oh yes we have – sorry, couldn’t resist) here’s one fairy tale I wish would come true: Once upon a time, in a land far away, people who have a learning disability face don’t face discrimination, prejudice and abuse.

In reality over the last few weeks alone there have been comments from a former UKIP candidate that that mothers carrying foetuses with Downs syndrome or spina bifida should be forced to have abortions and someone from Mensa (the organisation for intelligent people) making what I can only describe as an unintelligent comment describing people with low IQs as “carrots”.

While my fairy tale sounds far fetched, there is at least a happy story emerging in the theatre sector, where venues and theatre groups are trying to be more inclusive of “non-mainstream” audiences.

Although theatre arts have long and well-documented therapeutic links to learning disability, what’s often lacking is understanding on the part of audiences and venues, as has been reported and and as I’ve had the personal misfortune to find out.

Which brings me back to panto, the latest theatrical genre to benefit from the burgeoning growth of the relaxed performance (see my last post on this back in October ).

You’d have thought that the slapstick shows, with their badwy humour, audience participation and rolling-about-it-the-aisles atmosphere is just about as informal a theatre experience as you can get, but even pantos can do with a more understading attitude to audiences that are different. Not only that, but often the noisy environment of panto is a huge challenge for people with sensory issues – you might want to take part in the family experience, but need time out to gather yourself if you feel overwhelmed.

Relaxed performances are aimed at families with children with autism or learning disability. There’s a more relaxed attitude to noise in the auditorium (staff receive training from the National Autistic Society) and before the show, audience members get detailed information and photos or might attend a “familiarisation meeting” in the theatre and make use of a chill-out zone during the performance.

Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) announced pilot plans for relaxed pantomimes last year. Hopefully ATG will judge the scheme to have been a success and will embark on a relaxed panto performance at one of its West End theatres later this year.

My sister Raana had a great panto experience recently – it wasn’t because of the show itself, or because it was a relaxed performance (it wasn’t) but it because of how she was treated outside the auditorium, not just in it. A “relaxed performer” and understanding and accommodating staff, in fact, made all the difference.

My mum took Raana to see her hero, singer Noel Sullivan (onetime member of reality TV pop group Hear’Say) peform in panto at the Hawth Theatre, Crawley. Raana was desperate to meet him; for 10 years or so she has listened to his songs, watched him on YouTube, seen his shows, always talked about meeting him but never quite plucked up the nerve to try, even after waiting backstage after a show.

She had a stage door opportunity once but bottled out at the last minute – as our teenybop hero turned musical theatre performer emerged from the exit, off Raans scampered down the road, leaving my 60-year-old mother brandishing a mug as a gift and an awkward smile.

But, hey presto, the long-awaited meeting finally happened in December, thanks to some understanding members of staff who accommodated her request (replying promptly and sensitively to my mother’s telephone calls) – and to an understanding performer who gave his time to a painfully shy, awestruck, silent, nervous, overexcited fan just minutes before the curtain went up. Her wish was granted and she was incredibly proud of “her moment”.

My sis surely isn't going to meet her idol in panto? Oh yes she is!
My sis surely isn’t going to meet her idol in panto? Oh yes she is!

This time, despite the palpable anxiety, fidgeting and refusal to eat (nerves) she actually managed to meet him. As usual, my mother was prepared for her daughter to feel so overwhelmed that she’d throw up – despite this being something Raana desperately wanted to do. But it speaks volumes for my sister’s determination and self-possession that she waited patiently to meet him (I know we’re not quite talking about an audience with the Pope but with a man in pancake make up in Crawley – but the fact is she had this dream, and it was fulfilled).

Relaxed performer: panto fan Raana backstage with Aladdin, aka Noel Sullivan.
Relaxed performer: panto fan Raana meets Aladdin, aka Noel Sullivan.

Even weeks later, she is still buzzing from the experience, still mentioning to anyone who’ll listen (actually, even if they don’t listen) that she’s met her idol, still waving around her laminated (yes, for posterity) A4 colour copy of the photo of Noel posing with her.

This was, undoubtedly, her equivalent of Mission to Lars – only not quite as transatlantic, nor epic in scope, arduous in execution nor indeed as hardcore musically (just as well; I’m struggling to picture my mother at a metal gig).

This is what she said immediately afterwards (thanks to my leg man of a mum for taking down her verbatim words afterwards): “I met the biggest star in the world – couldn’t believe it was him! I got two big hugs from him and he posed for two photos with me. I was very happy to meet him. He is still my favourite!” (By the by, she is now planning her next meeting with him, rather than treating this as a one-off miracle, it’s boosted her confidence in the theory that her dreams can come true).

While the theatre in Crawley isn’t part of the relaxed performance scheme, general manager Dave Whatmore says that if someone needs a carer or companion – through having a visual impairment, learning disability or using a wheelchair – ticket concessions are available.

He adds: “Over the years staff have received training courses to raise their awareness of disability in general – although autism awareness as a specific training course hasn’t been offered, we’d certainly consider something for the future if it were available.” The theatre already hosts events for children with learning disabilities, working with Crawley council’s arts development team on organising inclusive events.

So while it’s heartening to see that the official relaxed performance drive is gathering apace, it’s also worth noting the difference that can be made through individual actions, good old fashioned customer communication, courtesy and simple awareness and understanding.

As for the days of people with learning disabilities being frowned upon in mainstream theatre, let’s hope they’re behind us (panto pun fully intended).

* For more information on accessible shows and venues, you can also checkout the Time Out with Netbuddy listings or follow @timeoutnetbuddy on Twitter

Disabiloty, Health, Housing, Learning disability, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized

Bricks and mobility: buildings and disability history

Carved stone hands reading braille, on the exterior of the former Royal School for the Indigent Blind, Hardman Street, Liverpool. The Grade II listed school was built in 1850 (pic: English Heritage)
A gap in a church wall speaks volumes about the history of disability in England; lepers’ squints allowed people with leprosy to see the pulpit and hear the service through a small chink in the stonework, without coming into contact with the congregation.

Images of churches with lepers’ squints are among hundreds included in a web-based project launched today by English Heritage. The Disability in Time and Place resource encourages the public to understand changing social attitudes to disability via England’s architecture and shows the influence of disability on the built environment.

Eleanor House, Buckinghamshire, the Epilepsy Society, opening ceremony 1896 (pic: Epilepsy Society)

As Rosie Sherrington, policy adviser at English Heritage says of Disability in Time and Place: “In essence we can track disabled in and out of the community and back in again by looking at the range of buildings they inhabited.”

The image-led project features institutions and landmarks, among them the Le Court Leonard Cheshire Home, often taken as the first meeting place of the disability rights movement where Paul Hunt began campaigning with other residents in care. The pictures are from English Heritage’s archive and also draw on historical images lent by the charity’s partner organisations.

Disability in Time and Place is being launched at the Graeae Theatre, Hackney (among the country’s leading fully accessible theatres) this afternoon with speakers including Tara Flood, ex-paralympian and director of ALLFIE (the Alliance for Inclusive Education), and architect and access expert Dr David Bonnett, whose pioneering work includes the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall.

Guild of the Poor Brave Things, Braggs Lane, Bristol (pic: Brave and Poor Ltd)

Among the places featured is the Guild of Brave Poor Things in Bristol (above), the first meeting places for disabled self-help groups. The visual history also includes the Liverpool School for Indigent Blind, opened in 1791 by Edward Rushton, who was blind. Rushton’s school was the first in Britain that aimed to give people the skills to be more independent.

Other sites featured are churches designed for deaf congregations such as St Bede’s Church in Clapham and St Saviour’s in Acton, both in London (the latter is still used as a deaf church). They have dual pulpits, one for the chaplain and one for the interpreter, as well as bright lighting and raked seating to boost visibility.

English Heritage’s web resource is divided into six sections, each taking a specific historical period – the Tudors or the early 20th century, for example – and looks at the building types associated with it.

Sherrington adds: “In the medieval period we have the idea that disability was a direct consequence of mankind’s sin, and therefore a religious matter. However disability as a result of disease such as leprosy was widespread, and an ordinary part of everyday life. It was not understood in the same way as we see it today.”

Moving onto Tudor times, she says, much of the care provided by monasteries and the church was destroyed during the dissolution, having disastrous consequences on the lives of disabled people. Paradoxically, Henry VIIIs “fools” were people with learning disabilities paid to entertain the court. It was a privileged role and they were thought to have divine wisdom.

“The 18th century saw the idea of disability being a matter of physicality rather than morality,” according to Sherrington, “and providing for the disabled became a matter of civic pride. As such many private asylums and enormous hospitals for the war disabled (like the Chelsea Pensioners) were built.”

With the rise of asylums and workhouses, disabled people were hidden away (although Sherrington adds “ this was though of as a positive move enabling disabled people to receive the ‘treatment’ they needed”). With the 20th century came the attitude that many people had incurable conditions (Sherrington draws our attention to the rise of eugenics “and the perceived need to separate those who were ‘healthy’ from those believed to be ‘inferior’”). But then two World Wars resulted in the notion of “heroic disabled” and the emergence of memorial villages and specialist rehabilitation hospitals.

According to Baroness Andrews, who chairs English Heritage, the project “is a history of the nation’s buildings and of a significant proportion of our population which, until now, has gone unexamined and untold. It is the part of the history of every town and city, with the schools, chapels and hospitals which surround us all each day but it has remained invisible and silent.”

English Heritage worked with a disability history steering group which included disabled employees, disability history academics including Jan Walmsley from the Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Group and Dr Julie Anderson from the University of Kent who specialises in war disability. Partners included ALLFIE (the Alliance for Inclusive Education). Other sources of advice, information and images include the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Disability History Month, the Centre for Disability Studies in Leeds, Leonard Cheshire, the Epilepsy Society, New College Worcester. All the content has been translated into British sign language videos by deaf interpreters.

* English Heritage has also updated its, Easy Access to Historic Buildings, available to download.