Shift of emphasis (1983)

63 take one 92 take one this film is about people many of them disabled but all of them linked through their involvement often ever many years with the Society we wouldn't claim though that they and their views and attitudes are an exact reflection of what all disabled people think of the society's role in their lives I think the respons a number of people in the film for instance because they have no voice rely intirely on their parents and the society to interpret their needs but by and large the opinion stated in this film reflect a sense of change change that is seen in many of the policy statements aims and objectives of society it's the translation of statements of policy into practice that provides the basic theme of this film on the front of the 5-year plan for the society's work centers is a statement of its prime objective policy into practice this statement provides the starting point I I think that if you spend a lot of time with the disabled you'll find that the majority of them are frustrated and that frustration is is bread through lack of opportunity when we first came here you were told what you were fit for for and that was it as you work with well if I say mediocre that would be putting it for likely well it was just a case of coming for something to do but as far as job satisfaction was concerned there was nothing you know they were there to be occupied uh the staff were there to administer and that was that for 8 and a half years I worked on the floor became assistant manager and saw that the changes were needed in the attitudes of people towards the disabled not only the attitudes of Able Body people to also disabled but the able the disabled to the disabled I think they disabled from their attitudes in past years have been very much to blame if we' stood up and said look here this is what we want to do long before we have started doing it as a body I think none of this would have happened oh I was I was Ely disgusted demoralized I didn't I in in my own case I didn't do I didn't do anything at all but as you say I just killed time and you know waited waited to be uh waited for something better one of the first things that I said about doing is changing the management structure at Sun showing that there's a ladder of promotion a ladder of development Within this unit here for individuals who want to participate and who have the potential to develop so we changed the structure we added two more points of management first line management the line leader and the section leader we then analyze what jobs these individuals needed to do so we developed job descriptions it's not a matter of sticking badges on individuals and saying well that's your job you got a badge carry it around no we analyzed the job we wrote a job description then we set up a training pattern for the individuals and this is what's happened I the support bar isly loose right okay right ma check are not there right you can just get bring them all out you count them again go I include the call that's gone out that you've done today they know what they have to do in the week they have a schedule which they have to produce and they have to produce it if they don't they attend a production meeting and they give us the reasons why it wasn't produced it is their responsibility all we've done is given them the responsibility and they've taken it and they're using it they're communicating with one another this doesn't happen all the time as you know in uh other places too many people are static too many people are seeking permission to do something what we have done by giving the job description to the individual they know their Authority they are people of responsibility decisions Tom Jones for example is making decisions every minute of every day what we have done now is we have created a cage structure within the industrial units which has given given the uh Workforce um more responsible attitude to their work it has also in increased the awareness of the responsibilities of the workforce towards their work it's the past eight months that I've been strength scheme has been going for 18 years but uh I haven't been in it for the full 18 cuz I was so much against it the thing is there's been a lot of things started in the past and they've just flopped you know like like I thought in the beginning it was just going to be imag right I'm I'm say line leader or a sex leader but the responsibility wouldn't be there to match and once I found out that the responsibility was there at the match uh I took the chance now we feel throughout the unit that we are actually do doing a job on a P with industry and therefore there there is a purpose there is a mean to what we're doing and this is vitally important what we have done here is used production as a model the disciplines of production to develop the individual so the individual will develop not only in the craft way but all the social ways as well say if I'm buying something in a shop and I find that there's something wrong with it I can go back with confidence and explain to them what I mean and things like this and it helps you build up confidence uh all around because you're dealing with salesman and uh all different representatives in work so it helps you deal with people outside I think the future of the society depends on the disabled within the society and not the able bodied I think the way we ought to go is the way that they want to go but I think it's important that before we set out on any program like this that clearly we understand what the objectives are and this is the development of the individual and that individual's right within the society to have a say and what the society is going to do decisions influence policy and policy affects people the client the disabled person so to what degree at either Regional or national level does the disable able person have a say Ron gerver is the chairman of the society's National Consumer group the group is made up overwhelmingly of disabled people plus the directed and was set up to examine problems of importance to disabled people but it's Ro has been ply advisory and it's influence within the society has remain Min we had the uh very good news during the week maybe some of you heard it on the media but that leaves another qut of a million missing and uh the society will no doubt be uh arranging an appeal things aren't much better at Regional level although here at a committee meeting of local groups in the northwest region two of the delegates are the ground this will be aital when I look around the room it's quite threatening I'm surrounded by parents of serly ped people My Views are not the same as the majority of people that are there and I can't expect people to understand the way I see the situation whatever it is and how whatever subject we're discussing because they see it from an able-bodied world and I see it from a disabled person's point of view and it takes a great lot of insight for an able-bodied person to put themselves in the same situation if they're making all these inquiries it's obvious that they're going to push for places I think they fear that if so posy people are involved on an equal basis that the change that will be involved in that would be too drastic for them to be able to cope with it questions a lot of their accepted attitudes and beliefs about disability and the sorts of services that the disabled people want for themselves well it's called a consumer group at the moment although the title might change and I think well well this is a problem but a consumer group is a group of spastics that have opportunity to express their opinions about problems that affect them and and hopefully influence perhaps change change within the society or influence where the money's going things like people could turn around them and say what right have you any more than me to say what as person who hasn't say got your mentality to say what they want we've never us any real but they can't speak for themselves so your views may be no better than mine or vice versa do you know do you know what I'm getting know I understand but what I feel is that perhaps the consumer group would be a forum whereby people will be intimidated by this sort of group would have the opportunity to express their opinions in in a more form going in back cour rather than having on the committee itself where we found that certain aspects that we disc because could cause embarrassment which I think it it can at times we said look those of you that are interested and there may be half a dozen who could do this form a subcommittee talk about the things you like the things you don't like that we do for you anything you feel that we ought to be doing that we're not doing and each month put in either a written report or something and we will discuss it and it never got off the ground because they just they just lost interest they preferred somebody else to think for them I don't lot of them aren capable of making up I know one encouraging thing at this meeting last week there were three members from Chester work center and they were very interested and they wanted to get involved and they wanted very much for it to be a democratic basis of the organization they wanted to elect representatives to the regional consumer group from the work center and the sort of response we've had from other PL other centers is that you know they want the people there to be involved and to elect a representative very much in the way that local groups I'm not in the past been very militant about things like this but while I was at Manchester University I suddenly came up across this this problem with transport how in the hell was I going to do my research when I was having to travel on public transport and there was nobody no agency nothing I couldn't get any any help from anywhere and it was then that I realized that to get change one have to do it yourself and it's from that point that I become more militant more involved in in consumer groups I don't see would that bringing people together like you're talking about from a long way away to talk about those very problems which we're already trying to do something about is really going to achieve anything in the end what be well if we find you know six to seven in in in the region that want to to be involved and want to do things to help the situation to improve facilities in their area but then are now suggesting that we we're not trying to improve facilities and we spend our tried to no I'm not saying that you don't but I'm saying that is it wrong that H I just feel that if nothing else if we build up the confidence of the disabled to what is interesting about this sequence is the gap between each side's perception of the roles that disabled people should adopt within the society and within this discussion are issues which are reflected outside the Society to a large extent the attitudes of the able-bodied towards the disabled are fashioned by the media these in turn mirror public attitudes so we disable people to break through these two mirrors is often exceptionally difficult most films television plays articles that come out about the people with disabilities are sentimental weepy slush written by able-bodied people and people when they come to it are only paying attention 50% of the time because they're making up the rest of it in their own heads and in order to wake them up because you must wake them up in order to get them to listen to you you have to carry out shock tactics but those shock tactics have to come from people with [Music] [Applause] disabilities a of aod and everything I need to be a famous rock and roll star [Music] I don't think the able-bodied establishment has got has got used to the idea that people disabilities have a sense of humor and that they have an awareness of their situation and are able to see the irony the humor of where they're at love my [Music] because [Music] I'm okay everybody you have not seen what a great potential you have to be a rock and roll star if you're blind and if you're tripple and if you're but let me tell you something if I was also gay and if I were Jewish if I were a communist I be in St he good evening everybody tonight I am going to teach you how to F cook an omelette as you can see we have all the ingredients with us a Fred pan s for milk eggs but the first thing you must do is I must do is take my ward off since that it's not like then get the eggs every time break them getting the man that reminds me of somebody [Applause] Jag attempting an omelette isn't an expression of him taking the Mickey out of himself but he's in fact taking the Mickey out of people's attitudes towards him they don't expect a to be trying to fry an egg or crack an egg open they don't think that they can do it it's a bit like expect expecting a to commit suicide by shooting themselves in the head you know they probably imagine but they'd keep missing the whole time there is also emerging a healthy questioning by disabled people about the ability of Charities to respond to their aspirations and needs this skepticism is reflected in the growing number of pressure groups consumer associations self-help groups and Resource Centers that threaten to rest the initiative from the established Charities particularly in the field of those two emotive words equality and Independence the most important thing for me is Independence what I mean by that isn't exactly what I think most people mean though everything for myself like dressing myself making my own meals things like that it would be nice to be able to do these things but I can't so I have to protect my Independence in other ways Independence is much more than that anyway it means freedom of spirit freedom to be what I am and do what I like without interference I suppose it's all about personal Integrity down of course it's difficult to preserve this kind of Independence while having to rely on other people for all your personal needs the whole ethos of care tends to meditate against your personal Integrity you have to work very hard at putting people at their ease you have to employ dozens of strategies to help able-bodied people see beyond this rather inert object me deny someone's humanity and you deny your own recognize the able body's training and Hang-Ups as a bigger problem than your own and you can begin to discover Independence I find it is possible to maintain equality in a care situation simply by behaving instinctively towards people most of the carers here are untrained which is an advantage for most trained staff find it very difficult they usually think they know better than you do what you need and think in straight lines they have a status to maintain too maybe it's the fault of the training but they lose their instincts fortunately most of the carers here are untrained and this tends to help because they have no preset boundaries they Define these as you go along just as you do in any other human relationship Glen Vernon Liv in one of the 24 Flats at the Center for Independent Living in Milton ke although specially designed these flats are dotted around the Neath Hill estate and from the outside are indistinguishable from the other houses the care of the residents is provided by a team of part-time care assistants prepared to do anything from toileting to cooking meals this team work under the supervision of a care organizer from a central point an ordinary house on the estate which is connected by intercom to the 24 flat the scheme does provide a base from which people have every chance to integrate into the growing community of Milton ke and it should be said that this city is probably the only one in Britain where this scheme could operate effectively having been built over the last 10 years every effort's been made to accommodate the needs of the disabled and in terms of Mobility it's a Dream City this means that disabled people are more in evidence here than anywhere else in Britain and as a consequence the general population by and large accept the disabled as part of their Community sorry for us all though it's still somehow unreal in many ways because we're still caught in the part three trap Social Security is taken from you as part payment of fees when the gas electricity or telephone bill pops through the letter box it's sent to the scheme's organizer and the society pays it in so many ways we're protected and as a consequence managed needs change as life changes but we have the same rigid timetable day after day we don't even decide what time to get up or when we would like to eat okay but uh you want some of that throughway don't you right life can't be genuinely independent because we're protected from the realities often harsh ones but realities make you grow up these might seem trivial things but when you're fighting for real Independence as a disabled person the fight is full of small battles if I were really honest about Neath Hill I think that's what I would call the scheme a small victory the real battle lies ahead two priorities for the societ soety in the 1980s are really if you like at opposite ends of the spectrum one are the involvement much more of the articulate um adult person at the other end of the spectrum you have the profoundly handicapped profoundly mentally and physically handicapped adult previously condemned to the subnormality hospital when their parents could no longer cope and the big problem is this that the parents in particular as worried at anything that you know when we die what's going to happen to our son or daughter and the [Music] moment the profoundly handicapped adult a ward in a longstay hospital is the only option available in most areas of the country once they have no relative left to look after them these places have been rightly condemned on many counts but above all for the simple fact that short of facilities and trained staff many profoundly handicapped people deteriorate once they are denied the stimulation of more Specialized Care yet a few miles from this Hospital stands one of the few centers for the profoundly handicapped run by local groups of the Society Granville house has been open for 30 years and caters exclusively for profoundly handicapped people the school has been running for 12 years but as the children of the original intake grew up so the range of Granville House's Services have expanded it's not just myself with many of the parents of the the people who started if you like and pioneered the um schools uh as their children Grew Older they tend to think what are we going to do now you know and that's when we decided that we would have two classes at granal house um simply young and old with an arbitary figure of who was young and who was old you know again one more time on drop it a bit more color this that's it that's a good girl smashing that come on we are basically one member of staff to two bodies now when you come into a hospital atmosphere you haven't got that ratio so obviously they can't do the same amount of things to the individual person now I want you to tell me as much as you can will say about this B here I you tell me as much as you can know if you get stuck and I can't understand what you're trying to say to me use the communicator to help yourself out okay right fine what we do as I said it's it's one staff to two bodies we've got more of an individual attention and to me this is the only thing because the handicap person isn't a handicapp person it's a person with a handicap this is the big thing and this is where people lose out because the think about the handicap is the the first thing it isn't it's a person the ones where did they go up to Moon the Moon right now when they've been been up to the moon and that where do they splash down in you've got to be thick skinned to be a parent of a handicapped person on the other hand it's no use having a lot of thick skinned people if you don't have somebody who can lead and in that respect you need somebody who can direct the energies of the people in that group to say this is what we want and do it professionally and say we must have it not please can we have it but we must have it because if we don't have it these profoundly handicapped are going to suffer the jobs of your life that you can't take no for an answer you can't because you get to knock you turn and walk away you've got to pursue this and I think the only thing is that you got to have thick skin because you get more knocks and what you do get credits but the end of the day as we're doing in stport here going to raise a quar million pound you've got something to aim for you've got a better quality of life for those people who are handicapped and this is what it's all about giving a better life now our unit is going to house 12 profoundly handicapped people four of these will be on Short Stay rotational imagin say whatever you wish and the other eight will be long long stay residence now this is a natural progression for our society looking after the profoundly handicapped people because as you realize that parents do go older and once a parent is either too old or unable to look after their handicapped Offspring then I hope that we will be able to step in and fill the breach it's all right saying about the days of the long stay hospital being numbered but it doesn't mean a thing unless you're prepared to do something and we are there's far too many people that we can accommodate okay once our residential's full right if we can then let's build another simple as that another qu of a million pound story has it that the Society started with four people sitting around a table and a 5 note now over 30 years later one of the scores of local groups can confidently expect to raise a qu million pounds in a matter of months but once this empty plot of land is filled and is home for eight people will their views be canvased will their wishes be respected these two questions contain an echo of previous sequences 30 years on the children who have grown up within the society are now mature adults seeking Independence seeking an outlet for their opinions opinions and perceptions that are often totally different from those of their parents to practice a policy of achieving the maximum possible Independence and personal fulfillment means more than just listening to them it means involving them in decision- making at all levels it means employing more disabled people within the society it means to put it boldly cheering power what's happening in Stockport Nel what's happening in stock for