Category Archives: Third sector

Education, Health, Housing, Social care, Social exclusion, Substance misuse, Third sector, Young people, Youth crime

‘They made me feel worthwhile’: community-based alternatives to care

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Building relationships with children at risk of care helps keep them at home (pic Includem/Warren Media).
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.

imagesDaniel*, 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.”

INCLUDEM-LWKaren 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.”

* Daniel is not the young man’s real name

Disability, Employment, Learning disability, Social care, Third sector

Fetes, fundraising and firsts

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Raffle ticket seller Raana Salman at the Lantern Community open day
Raffle ticket seller Raana Salman at the Lantern Community open day
I’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.

Here’s a small taster of a very successful day:

Bullying, Cuts, Disability, Learning disability, Social care, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized

Public transport should be for all members of the public

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Kevin Preen and Michael Edwards embark on their campaign to raise awareness about travel and learning disability
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.

End To End Infographic

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.

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, 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!”

Race, Third sector, Young people

How do you raise “good Muslim British citizens”?

Parenting, at the best of times, can be as difficult as it is rewarding, but what happens if what you take to be your religious values muddy the water when it comes to raising your family? If you’re brought up thinking your religion bans any talk about sex, what do you do when your child asks where babies come from?

This kind of question was at the nub of a recent course for Muslim parents – Islamic Values and the Parenting Puzzle – I reported on. Some of the cultural “learnings” that were mistaken as religious teaching included issues such as not talking about sex or ignoring the child’s opinion about family matters.

The course stems from the work of a very forward thinking family practitioner called Arifa Naeem. Naeem used an established course devised by the charity Family Links, which trains parenting support workers, and added extracts from the Qur’an and the Prophet Mohammad’s sayings.Family Links now employs Naeem

One concern among parents is how to reconcile western values and life with their religious or cultural upbringing. The course, as Naeem says, supports parents towards adopting positive practices consistent with Islamic religious values, helping them be “good Muslim British citizens”.

Although I did the story before the murder of Lee Rigby and the ensuing reports about a rise in Islamaphobia, anyone with any assumptions about Islam and Muslims would do well to listen to the words of the many mothers on the course, with their unanimous aim of raising “good Muslim British citizens” and reconciling their eastern heritage with their western context.

I’d like to thank the women, like Ifat, who shared their family stories and their time:

Ifat Nisa feared her teenage son was hanging out with “the wrong crowd”, drinking, smoking or experimenting with drugs – but when she questioned him, they always argued.

Brought up not to challenge her own parents, Nisa was confused about how to parent an apparently disrespectful teenager. She heard about a parenting course at her mosque in Slough, Berkshire, and despite initially dismissing it – “My reaction was ‘it’s not Islamic'” – when she discovered it was tailored for Muslim parents, decided to try it out.

Nisa recalls: “I was worrying I wasn’t a good parent. I was confused why my son was reacting like he did; the course helped me understand his emotions and feelings.” Nisa learned about empathy and stopped blaming and constantly questioning her son. She credits the course for their strong, healthy relationship now.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

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.

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, Music & arts, Third sector, Uncategorized

Art thinks outside the box

Head of David Rushbrook, James Lake's sculpture of the baritone
Head of David Rushbrook, James Lake’s sculpture of the baritone

One glance at James Lake’s giant 3D portrait of baritone David Rushbrook, and you may never look at a cardboard box the same way again.

Lake’s showstopping sculpture, created through the painstaking layering of cardboard, is intended to move, sing and perform alongside the other performers on stage (the head has already featured alongside the opera singer in Glyndebourne).

As the artist explains on his website, he chose the “inexpensive, commonplace and recyclable” medium because he “wanted to sculpt beyond the traditional materials and without the need of an arts studio”. Lake’s right leg was amputated after bone cancer at the age of 17 and his work focuses on humanity, strength, and vulnerability. His aim is to create work that breaks down the barriers in the art world.

The giant piece of Rushbrook, who has a learning disability, is just one big reason to visit Shape Arts‘ pop up multimedia gallery in London, Shape in the City, which is now open until May. The disability-led arts charity works to improve access to culture for disabled people and Lake is one of 30 disabled or deaf artists featured over five floors and 60,000 feet of exhibition space.

Lake’s 3D work head is shown alongside prints, paintings, film and video, poetry, performance art and installations. The showcase features established as well as up and coming artists plus pieces from the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad programme: ‘Unlimited’.

Here’s a bit more information about three other pieces on display:

Sitting Without Purpose’, James Lake's depiction of his father
Sitting Without Purpose’, James Lake’s depiction of his father

Lake’s life-size Sitting without Purpose depicts his father during redundancy, aiming to reflect a man contemplating the challenges of life.

Noemi Lakmaier paints 500 pairs of shoes in paint used used to mark accessible parking bays
Noemi Lakmaier paints 500 pairs of shoes in paint used used to mark accessible parking bays

Visitors to the exhibition can watch Noemi Lakmaier live or via webcam painting 500 pairs of shoes in the kind of paint used to mark accessible parking bays in homage to her 2008 piece Experiment in Happiness. Lakmaier’s work explores ideas of the “other”, such as how the individual relates to surroundings and identity. By the time the pop up gallery closes, it will be filled with hundreds of painted shoes.

Chrisopher Sacre's 'See What This Man Gave Birth to After Using 2000 Condoms in 22 Days'
Chrisopher Sacre’s ‘See What This Man Gave Birth to After Using 2000 Condoms in 22 Days’

Chrisopher Sacre‘s artistic epiphany, as he himself has said,”may have arrived in an unexpected form” – but his work has been transformed since discovering “a happy marriage between condoms and plaster”.

* Shape in the City, in partnership with Photovoice and Action Space, 40 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0BT, 10:00am to 2:00pm. For more information email popupgallery@shapearts.org.uk