Our local Hero's; Mum and Daughter duo, have at last got their wish, after nearly 4 years of trying. Their 'Housing Island' on the Longfield estate has finally been provided with the access needed for this young lady to drive her wheelchair safely to Tesco, Town Shops and give her safer access to College. This is a big help towards this young lady's independence.

The Longfield Road and Brown Street block of houses is the latest part of the Estate to get 'Drop Kerbs' installed. This had previously been delayed, because the old 'District Council' had run out of money. Drop kerbs, as these two campaigners have been arguing for years, are essential for the safe street access of people with physical and sensory impairments and are also beneficial to mothers with babies in push chairs.

All she needs now is the transport necessary to get her to College in the morning, during the winter periods, when she tends to get to college very cold and wet. She says that she will be fine getting home, because she can easily warm up and get dry at home. Getting to College wet and cold is more of a problem and interferes with her studies. Come on Wiltshire, give her and Mum a break .

Mum has a lot of other family responsibilities and work demands on her time, she has also had her health problems and is proudly independent and wants to keep up working. She could take her Daughter, at a push, but her Daughter also want to be independent of Mum, as much as she can. Like all independently minded young people of her age, she does not want to remain too dependent on her.

There is always an assumption that parents should take the entire practical responsibility for their children's lives, especially if they are assessed as having a disability. Well, that is not true for most teenagers and young adults, why should it be for those who registered as having a disability? Part of maturing as an adult is the gradual acceptance of personal responsibility and greater independence of action.

Parents want to keep their role as parents, helping their kids out when things sometimes go wrong. Community Care is about providing the support and resources which compensate for the impairments that the person has. Parents should never be the cheap option. This was never meant to be the case. Parenting is a special role, it includes 'caring', but should never become entirely caring for life. That is nearly always detrimental to both.

So, come on Wiltshire, do your thing; Either provide the enabling and services needed to ensure her social inclusion, or provide her with the funding and facilities, so that she can organise these things for herself. This is Community Care; Between the Council and its resources and the Voluntary and Charitable agencies in the community (adequately provided for by Wiltshire Council) and reliable arrangement should be possible.

From these potential options, it is then this young lady's entitlement to choose what best suits her. That is what becoming independent is all about. None of us are totally independent. We all rely on family, friends, employers, bosses, colleagues, shop assistants and all those other people and resources available to us, according to our needs and desires. Community care is about maintaining this equality of opportunity and spreading the load.

It is great for people who have a disablement to see the results of their efforts and the help provided by local media and committed professionals. This should not have to be such a challenging task. For many people, things are often difficult enough, without the additional burden of fighting for what is plainly needed. Helping people to help themselves saves money, time and professional effort.

The earlier that enabling support is provided the more independent the person becomes and the earlier they are able to do the the valuable things they have ambitions to do. Get the support in earlier and more effectively then there would be more people with disablements who would want to take an active part in their community. This young lady wants to help kids. You have only just started her along that path - well done Wiltshire.

There is another, slightly older young woman who has, in spite of her severe physical disablements, chosen to train and work as a part time Citizen's Advice Worker and a Magistrate. She has brought with her many professionals skills and disability and cultural skills and insights which will be invaluable in both these roles. This will benefit the effective working with many groups in the community. She is also a active mum and partner.

The Future is Bright and it is Green (for go):

I know all your wishes will be with these determined people to live their lives as fully as they can. The contribution that we each make, when provided without resentment and prejudice, comes back to us all, in more ways than we can imagine. Enablement and Inclusion and the current buzz words. These concepts have been around for over 30 years and we are still waiting for proper implementation of these fundamental entitlements.

Enablement is the flip side of Disablement (something that our attitudes and environments contributes towards not than any physical impairment). Inclusion is the flip side of Exclusion, something that people have suffered for generations to all our detriment. We have happily paid for people to be shut away, rather than invest in the person's potential to take a full part in our communities, social lives and employment.

Believe me;  we can not afford to exclude people any longer. We have to invest earlier in peoples lives, not wait (as we are often doing) until the problem is substantial and critical. There are so many people who are determined to overcome their impairments, even very severe ones. Unfortunately, there are also many who have lost hope, or were never provided the inspiration to push themselves forward to achieve in their lives.

The current costs of providing 'dependent care' is fast becoming prohibitive. This is the consequence of the failure of 'enabling' initiative over the last 30 years. It does not benefit those with impairments and it does not benefit the rest of us, who are living longer and increasingly surviving quite disabling conditions. It is in all our best interests to ensure that everyone gets a fair 'enabling' deal early on.

Find out how you can play your part locally. Check out the links on the right and see what is provided by Wilshire Council and the other Community Services. Check out your own and other peoples entitlements. Participate in the proactive development of services and take on 'enabling' voluntary roles. Find out how we can each take a more positive attitude to 'Supporting People' so that they are more able to help themselves and us in turn.

Shake off your prejudices concerning age, disability, culture and politics. You could be in need of support at any point from tomorrow onwards. No investment, insurance, or contract can ever compensate for a loss of some personal facility; be it physical, mental, emotional, or social. Your personal determination will take you a long way but, as they say; 'No person is an island'. We are all dependent in the end, some sooner than others.

Plan your future now and be sure you are part of other people's future. If you are lucky, you will need them sooner or later, and those who have already been there will be the best able to advise you how to survive what life will eventually throw at you. Anyway, positive attitudes are good for you health and wellbeing. The most important investments we make are in people, the most important insurances come from people - Mostly those less selfish than ourselves, you better believe it. It is about doing with people rather than doing for.

Services in Crisis

We interrupt our normal programs in order to bring you important Local News, concerning 'your' local communities. These issues will affect you, sooner rather than later (and probably are right now).

Some services, provided to make your community safe, more secure & caring, are effectively being reduced in funding & staffing; in the name of 'improvements'. Executives Managers can not acknowledge this, even if they want to. They are effectively gagged. Most of us want the best for people and are sometimes at a loss to do what is best.

We are in a time of financial crisis. This will affect services and increase the pressures upon existing staff. There was already some urgency, because of needed improvements in services within rural areas and towns. They are many years behind the Cities, for lots of complicated reasons.

There is a serious impact upon the health and welfare of vulnerable residents of your community. More people are becoming distressed daily. It is a further burden in their lives. For this reason, we are going to focus 'locally' on these urgent Community Care matters, over the next few weeks.

We will be concentrating on the Wiltshire Service areas for now, as this is where our Community Projects are currently operating, but these problems will also affects other Counties and other Local Community & Health Authorities. It is a thankless task, as we all naturally hate criticism. Most personal services are affected.

We intend to set up a regional Website over the next few weeks. We hope that professionals get to realise that these criticisms are actually to the benefit of committed clients, professionals and manager alike. For now please check out the Headlines below. (To understand our 'critical perspective' see: The Basis for Criticism).

The following accounts are some of the more urgent issues recently identified. Some will seem frivolous or exaggerated, by comparison with the bigger issues that we and the media highlight. You have to be on the receiving end to fully recognise their serious impact.

To understand fully, you have to realise that one small issue magnifies all the other small issues in peoples lives. Form filling and complex & intimidating procedures (which we normally just about manage) become unbearable under stress and depression.

There are so many examples that it will take months to get them all fully recorded and logged onto the website. I ask that your consider each item as 'Another brick n the wall', blocking people from getting the help that they urgently need, early on in a developing crisis.

Below are some of the current Headlines for issues that I have researched over years. Our community network members (and others they are in direct contact with) regularly experience these problems locally (but not exclusively) in Wiltshire. Most regions, counties and towns are affected, but Rural regions are particularly distressed.

Our basic assertion is, that Health & Social Care Institutions now effectively Assess in order to 'Exclude' people, rather than Assess to 'Include' people (as is required by the Disability & Community Care Acts and the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities). These have status as Law, along with UN & EC Human Rights.

This tendency is rarely because of an intention to deprive people of the help and support that they urgently need. Most professionals are committed, ethically & personally, to providing a full and fair service to anyone in need. We have become too focussed on accounting and policing services; attempting to catch the few who abuse the rights.

It is the current inefficient & ineffective use of many resources and a lack of recognition of the consequences of failing to help at an early stage, that we challenge. Government, accounting & legal officials have not helped; by insisting on recording in the way that we do. Professionals are increasingly Book-keepers & Data Processors.

This  provides no real protection to services, or to clients - it is actually an ineffective hindrance and reduces essential services.

© Terry Couchman, May - Aug. 2009

PLEASE NOTE:                                                                   

It is important to understand that the people we are referring to (without names) are aware of the issues being raised in this way and we have their enthusiastic permission to publicise these issues. These are not grumbles, they profoundly affect their health and wellbeing

The reason that people are not named is primarily because it is not necessary to do so. News media would often name people if they wished, assuming these individual's wished to tell their stories and have them published in that way. That is often a very effective way to publicise important issues.

As an editor, I tend not to encourage people to include their names, but I am happy to do so, if this is clearly what they wish. The reason for reluctance to encourage this personal exposure, is because the potential disadvantages of doing so often outweigh the potential benefits.

I know this as a researcher and as a result of my direct experiences in campaigning to get these kinds of issues resolved. I am also informed as a result of working as a professional in the Health & Social Care field. People can get ostracised for being challenging of the services. Some professionals are culpable in this.

Using people's names adds credibility to the accounts and may enable good professionals to focus on the individual's needs more sharply. Adding their names gives them the eventual, deserved, credit for helping to raise awareness of these more general issues, for the benefit of all.

Unfortunately, giving out vulnerable and distressed people's names can also make them targets for criticism, humiliation, manipulation and abuse. As those of us who are 'survivors' know, you have to be pretty robust to stand up for your rights, & speak out publically, even within professional institutions. The Fear is justified.

Persistent rejection, being passed over to others, hearing excuses for not being offered help, frequent assumptions that you are not in genuine distress and the antagonistic reaction to your legitimate anger, all poorly prepare people for coping with making effective complaints. It is often an intimidating and unrewarding experience. This is why we are here - to make the process feel 'natural'.

This Website was originally developed to help people who experienced Prejudice, Abuse and Mental Ill Health, to overcome their difficulties for themselves. This initiative is the outcome of long term operational research, professional practice and support of a number of small, local Community Support Networks.

In the process, we have come across so many examples of serious failures of duty, prejudice and general shortfalls, that I have been forced to take a more critical line on our website. Most neglect, failures and abuses are hidden, slowly simmering and developing into more serious problems. Only the 'newsworthy' consequences usually get the media and the public's full attention.

In over 30 years of direct experience in these areas, I have never experienced more disturbing examples of increasing injustice and 'deterioration' in the Rights of people in Poverty. Victims of persistent, low level abuse and culpable neglect, are invariably dismissed, by professionals, as 'someone else's responsibility'.

This attitude is contrary to all professional ethics and the Human Rights obligations, established in Law and encapsulated under the 'Mind the Gap' principles. There are complex systems of expensive support service in place. They have become almost impossible for ordinary (particularly the distressed) people to access; for their early intervention, benefit, support and long term independence.

You have to fail, become incompetent, or be seen to be victimised, in order to get the help that is on offer. It was not meant to be this way. We are becoming 'crisis' services - prevention is seen as low priority and people become disabled as a result. We have sadly lost perspective within the services and perhaps lost our way also.

This is a sad failure of Social Work & Health Care and was never intended to happen. Most professionals are frustrated.

© Terry Couchman, May - Aug. 2009