Tag Archives: charity

Cuts, Disability, Learning disability, Music & arts, Social care, Social exclusion

The man dreaming of being ordinary – and the campaign to help him

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An awareness-raising postcard by Cameron, 18: "Each fruit on my tree of life displays a message for me to follow. This helps me to mature and develop".
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”.
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."
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: “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”.
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.

Health, Older people, Wellbeing

Older people power: society and product design need to wise up

Gordon Morris, Age UK Enterprises
Gordon Morris, Age UK Enterprises

Society often fails to realise that people aged 65 and over currently represent a sixth of the UK population responsible for £120 billion worth of spending power a year – over 18% of total spending in the UK. And the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to rise by nearly 50% in the next 20 years to over 16 million (figures from the Office for National Statistics).

As Britain adapts to an ageing population, the marketplace for assisted living aids and adaptions such as stairlifts, adapted bathrooms, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and pendant alarms will become a dominant area of spending. Market forces will encourage producers and distributors to sharpen up their communications to older people but it would be a very positive development if we were to address this now rather than later.

The government’s 3 million lives initiative, announced last year with the aim of improving access to telecare and telehealth, is an important step towards transforming service delivery for people with long term conditions, and/or social care needs, by utilising telehealth and telecare within health and social care services. Telecare and telehealth relate to the use of technology-related devices, from high-tech equipment to simple sensors, that help people maintain their independence and boost their safety. And during a recent debate on the Care Bill in the House of Lords the government announced that it intends to maintain existing entitlements for older people regarding aids, minor adaptations and intermediate care.

These developments are warmly welcomed. However recent research by Age UK Enterprises, the commercial arm of the charity, found that there is still a way to go in ensuring that knowledge about these developments is passed to those who most need them. The survey revealed that 20% of over 65s feel there is a lack of information available about independence aids for the home.

The low consumer awareness amongst people aged 50-70 of the very products which can aid independent living at an older age can be addressed. But there are also social perceptions that we need to tackle too. A key finding from the research conducted by the Health Design & Technology Institute (HDTI) at Coventry University in partnership with Age UK and campaigning charity Grandparents Plus, is that while some in later life would benefit from independence aids, many older people do not want to be stigmatised or singled out as being in need of “assisted” products or “equipment”.

Age UK Enterprises is interested in this as we provide personal alarms (one of many aids that help older people remain independent within their own home). It is imperative that the utmost is done to prevent falls and accidents within the home and these aids are a step in the right direction to ensure the protection of this demographic (NHS figures show that around 30% of adults over 65 and living at home will experience at least one fall a year and this rises to 50% of adults over 80 who are at home or in care).

So we need to collectively tackle these issues by thinking comprehensively. From their inception and design these products need to help avoid stigmatising older people by ensuring good, attractive, non-medical design. Their availability needs to be considered too.

Out Age UK Engage Business Network aims to share knowledge and insight about what the ageing process means for business best practice. It encourages better design of mainstream products and services to meet the needs of our ageing populationThe Network is seeing more and more businesses waking up to the idea of making services and products easier to engage with and inclusive; not just subsets of their product range aimed at the older market but their entire offering. If done well, this will naturally make brands accessible to all customers, including people in later life.

We must help older people realise how much support is available to them. There are solutions available to help improve their independence, as well as their confidence in the support available to them. This support network is substantial and includes everyone from charities and businesses, through to local authorities and the government, and each element has its part to play in raising awareness of independence aids.

* Gordon Morris is managing director of Age UK Enterprises. Age UK’s ‘Adapting your home’ guide includes information about the aids that can enable older people to stay independent in their own homes for longer; for a free copy call Age UK Advice free on 0800 169 6565 or visit www.ageuk.org.uk to download a copy.

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