The management of work centres (1973)

e [Music] it's Monday morning again and most of us are going to work we have to work to earn a living but apart from receiving Financial reward for our efforts the sense of Personal Achievement and of playing a part in the society in which we live is surely important too Mr Dick Thatcher is a or to be more precise and aoid although most people would think that dick is unemployable he is on his way to work like everyone else except that he attemp stained very early in life he is quite liable to have more than one disability Mr Thatcher himself an intelligent man has to put up ath toid and in common with this particular disability suffers from a severe speech defect Mr Tony gray is also intelligent but is a right hemiplegic both limbs are affected on his right side and also is deaf and dumb Miss Rosalind Eve apart from being a right hemiplegic suffers from Petty mile fits is constantly under sedation and is educationally subnormal Miss Susan Butcher is a quadriplegic having very little use in all four Limbs and is also mentally handicapped Mr David cordry is a paraplegic whose legs are paralyzed and also has spatial perceptual difficulties before we see just how Mr Thatcher and his friends cope with their individual handicaps in a work center environment let us first look at the problems of organizing and running a work center in 1957 this building was leased from the local Council by the central middlex spastics Welfare Society the members of this local group frustrated by the lack of suitable facilities in their area decided to provide some sort of occupation themselves other local groups had also started to provide occupation for adult spastics and very often out of necessity in inadequate buildings the workers here are lucky in that next week they will be moving into a new purpose built work center in Pinner this is their new work center made possible by a substantial Grant from the Society the responsibility and Initiative for assessing the need for a work center is that of the executive committee of the local spastics group and it is generally planned and organized in consultation with the Society this committee is also responsible for stimulating the interest and support of local people and organizations responsible for the effective functioning of the work center is the management committee and its members must by implication be persons capable of constructive contribution to the process of management this particular Committee of the Cen group includes two parents of persons a number of people working in local Industries holding practical as well as managerial positions and a member of the local Authority Social Services Department Miss Jee gwood who not only started the Cen group but was a Founder member of the Society the wide variety of skills provided by this group ensures a well balanced effective management committee to become effective the committee must formulate a program to provide an adequate service for the handicapped workers who attend the center appointed to direct the day-to-day running and administration of the CER Center is the work center manager his appointment is an important one to the success of the center what sort of man should he be he must be sensitive to the problems of his workers and be willing to concern himself with their welfare he needs to know when a few words of encouragement or disciplinary action are necessary when to involve parents and when to call in the specialized knowledge of social workers and others he should be something of a production manager he must assess the viability of a potential job improve Work loading and quality control and onor delivery dates for completed work all at prices that are competitive so too must he be something of an engineer he must be practically minded so that he can helped to overcome by designing and making Jigs and fixtures some of the physical problems encountered by his workers he requires an understanding of simple accountancy seeing that ledgers and cashbooks Etc are kept properly he must also keep a watchful eye on the center's budget which sets the financial limits within which the service must operate he needs to be something of a Personnel officer to select his staff carefully and to train them to become useful and vital members of his team and he must be something of a Salesman to negotiate for subcontract work and promote confidence that the work produced will be of high quality and delivered on time no work center manager however is perfect and one of the important facets of management is the art of Delegation he must weld his group of adaptable and enthusiastic instructors into a team there are relatively few handicapped young people who on leaving school have the ability or the capacity to go straight into normal employment for these children the problems of learning not only School subjects but that of discovering what goes on outside their restrictive world are particularly acute many spastics are immature for their age and many suffer from lack of confidence some school levers cannot accept their handicap and often feel a sense of failure because they've not reached a standard set by their parents or by themselves they need an easier stepping off point by way of sheltered work experience and time for social and personal adjustment the social work and employment department of the Society organizes periodic assessment courses during these courses where the spastics live away from home fully trained professional staff have the opportunity not only of assessing their physical capabilities but also also the way they behave socially one of a group of tests carried out is to determine whether a person has spatial perceptual difficulties this handicap is not generally one that is easily recognizable and an intelligent man like David can appear to be quite clumsy and have a lower than average intellectual capacity some people manage to come to terms with their spatial defect and are able to give a false impression as to their degree of handicap the ability to recognize letters figures and words and the ability to reproduce them in proper spatial relationships is essential for reading arithmetic where spatial difficulties are involved this Factor alone impedes the academic skills for children even if they have the requisite mental capacity this problem is found to be even more acute when a child leaves school and finds it impossible to hold down a job involving basic matching and assembling of objects many bright people with a spal perceptual difficulty often become distressed when they are unable to make a copy which matches the model and the sort of expression he makes is why can't I make my hands do what my eyes see it is not always appreciated that they have a perceptual defect and it would seem that quite a high percentage of all groups have some spatial perceptual difficulties the Practical aspect of getting up in the morning to go to work to a work center mixing socially and working besides often more experienced workers is a good basic step from an educational to a working environment when a person attends for interview at a work center it is essential to glean as much information from her as possible even though reports from school the Society or the appropriate local Authority may be on hand obviously the physical handicap should be observed and it should be noted whether there is any hearing sight or speech defect and whether a lack of concentration is apparent a note should be made of any history of fit suffered and the medication prescribed by the use of washers for instance it may be possible to assess any spatial perceptual difficulties and coordination problems that may be present it is also necessary to ascertain any toilet or feeding or other personal problems and where the transport must be provided when the time comes for showing her around the work center the manager will have a pretty good idea as to how well she is likely to get on with the other workers and how she is likely to manage the work available it is however only after she's had a settling down period attending the work center that a more realistic overall picture of her cap abilities and social behavior can be assessed it is desirable to provide as wide a variety of work as possible so that the workers can be moved about from job to job thereby reducing the possibility of boredom and the consequent loss of production the most vital aspect of selecting the right kind of work to be produced in the work center must be to consider the capabilities of the handicapped and not however tempting to accept a job because it would be just financially rewarding for instance obtaining a job where most of the work has to be done by the instructors most spastics have multi- disabilities and unless simple one operation jobs are selected or more complex work broken down into simple operations there are bound to be a number of workers who will be unable to manage the work the manager's aim is to provide jobs to keep his workers busy and although this is seldom an easy task to fulfill this objective must have priority over the financial implications work should however be priced on a fair commercial basis it is all too easy for business organizations to take advantage of nonprofit making Ventures some centers provide handicraft work and although the financial reward is generally smaller than that of industrial work it still can be a desirable proposition this is particularly so when a center is some distance from an industrial town and can also act as a buffer when for one reason or another a current subcontract job comes to an end another big Advantage with this type of work is for those workers who have a natural creative and artistic ability and who prefer the one-off jobs in preference to more repetitive work apart from handicrafts many centers produce and Market their own products here they are making wire coat hangers for the dry cleaning trade breaking the operations down into four simple hand operated jigs enables even some of the most severely handicapped to be productive sometimes it is necessary for one worker to help another to maintain the production flow and also to enable the more severely handicapped person to feel that he is playing his part in the team this machine for producing wall tires used in the building industry was designed and developed by the manager working in conjunction with the local Technical College the second operation to complete the wall ties is done by using hand operated jigs wire wickets used extensively in the polythene packaging industry also provide a useful form of employment this press operation is one of a number needed to produce toy Kazo sold to local music shops when they are finally assembled they must be inspected sterilized and packed another useful item is reflective armbands for children fly presses as we see here are most suitable for handicapped workers including many who are normally confined wheelchairs in some instances spastics are able to produce more by the use of these machines and find the work more satisfying particularly when they have hands that are difficult to control and would find the job of screwing a nut onto a bolt far more difficult and frustrating this is how Mr Dick Thatcher finds his job satisfaction he works in the Press shop and takes pride in playing his part by helping to produce wire coat hangers among the many produced by these presses are components for radar cathode ray tubes tape recorders Geer counters switch gear the television industry and computers Drilling deburing and tapping are jobs that can quite easily be done by most spastics enabling the center to offer a wi assortment of skills to local industry 12 6ba holes are tapped in this brass strip when all the work is completed it will become one of many thousands of buz bars used in GOP equipment monell is a very hard steel and drilling a small hole down the center of a screw produces a great deal of friction this contract was secured because the girls in the factory broke far more drill and the workers in this Center this job involves the use of a small LA and the worker is cutting away the metal casing of reject sparking plugs so that the firm can reuse the insulators assembly work is perhaps the widest field from which suitable work can be selected for the the work center even in this automated age there are still thousands of assembly operations which are either impossible or far too expensive to automate Tony gray is busy assembling terminal blocks if you walk into just about any public house you will see these levers at the base of the whiskey and gin bottles accurately measuring the delivery of your next drink this assembly job is broken down into a number of operations to make the assembly line flow efficiently these water pumps are being assembled for use in domestic washing machines both these operators suffer from severe fits a car accessory firm has a continuous contract with this Center to assemble exhaust pipe brackets another large contract is for producing eyebolts for a local manufacturer packing components into cellophane polythene or cardboard containers is the most usual form of packing work this man is packing washers into cellophane bags he needs a high worktop as he partially cited here is a rather unusual method of placing an ice scraper for car wind screens into a display card a job involving several operations is the packing of typewriter Eraser pads now the pad is enclosed in polythene by means of a heat sealer other types of work not shown in this film are printing Pottery jewelry garden furniture and the cultivation of plants and flowers basically it's what the worker accomplishes that is important to feel that he is playing a part in the community by producing something useful the average wage a worker can expect to earn is1 15 P per week some centers pay 22 per week but are unable to pay more as this would violate the weekly Social Security supplementary benefit it is important to note that it is not the responsibility or the aim of the manager or the management committee to raise money or to make a profit from the work produced at the center occasional visits to the work center during working hours by members of the management committee are essential for only in this way will they be able to plot the progress made be properly aware of the problems involved and provide the continuing support and advice that may be necessary the problems of involving the more severely handicapped person in the workforce are particularly difficult at this Center the manager has designed a small fixture to enable a screw to be inserted accurately into the top of a grew cap without these fixtures the job would be impossible for some of the spastics here and would not only reduce the amount produced but also mean that a number of the more lightly handicapped spastics would need to come off other important work to enable the center to meet production requirements of course providing the right kind of work as the manager and his staff try to do successfully does not prevent occasional outbursts of frustration frustration caused through a handicapped person feeling that she is not able to work fast enough even though she tries hard due to her aggravating disabilities the frustration of doing repetitive industrial work when if you hadn't been born a you could have been working in an office or traveling the world or have become a successful artist artist or composer the knowledge that the chances of ever getting married and raising a family are extremely slim and often non-existent sexual frustration and the mere fact of realizing that one is not attractive to the opposite sex is a particularly real and difficult problem this often leads to loss of temper unsocial behavior and in some cases extreme depression it is vitally important that these problems are recognized and and understood often these outbursts of bad behavior occur during tea breaks or lunch periods when sitting idle can bring disturbing thoughts into one's head feeding can be a problem for some and if it is necessary for a worker to be hand-fed there is invariably a less handicapped person who will step forward to help with this task thereby giving the staff a short break during the Lunch Period after lunch relax either going for a walk or playing drafts chess or cards most of the subcontract jobs produced especially those of packing and assembly release employees in Industry from this necessary but time consuming work so that they can be efficiently employed on more involved operations it is imperative that delivery dates are honored for although one may be employing handicapped workers these centers enjoy renewed contracts only because they satisfy the customer with prompt delivery good quality work and not out of pity from time to time some workers feel that they are being held back against their will and that they should go for further training or straight into open employment the reasons are sometimes purely Financial or mistaken ideas as to ability on the part of the few spastics have any conception of working conditions in open employment they have little knowledge of industrial discipline or how their speed Compares with that of a normal person all managers are Lo to lose their best workers but some of the lightly handicapped spastics are able to progress sufficiently to enable them to seek alternative employment after a period of from 6 months to a year or more gaining experience and confidence in work and working with people a worker may be good enough to try for bigger rewards sometimes employees themselves are able to find work but more generally rely on the help and guidance of the social work and employment department of the Society in conjunction with the findings of an assessment course or on the recommendation of the work center manager a a worker May apply for further training there are at the moment 27 work centers for spastics in England and Wales enabling over 700 people to take an active part in society several more centers are being built but there is still the need to enlarge some existing centers and to build more work centers are costly units to support and most of the running costs are provided by voluntary contributions the more enlightened local authorities are providing better facilities than ever before but the atmosphere still tends to be social rather than work and often they are only able to provide for 2 or 3 days attendance per week in many cases this is due to inadequate transport facilities and so many spastics who live in an area where there is no work center still have to spend some considerable time at home when they could be making more use of their talents within the last decade much has been achieved but we still have a lot more to learn and to accomplish to try to have a clearer understanding of the problems a person labeled has to live and work with at the same time we perhaps need to be reminded that many spastics tend to be preoccupied with their own problems and it is essential that we try to help them become more independent we need to be constantly aware of the dangers of overprotection it is very easy when one has transport facilities to pick up workers from their homes when many can be encouraged to be more independent and use public transport the nearer a person can get towards the normal pattern of life with work and social contacts the happier more mature more confident and more able to cope with day-to-day problems he will become a person who is handicapped needs to feel that he too is a useful citizen the right to work to achieve fulfillment a sense of Pride another day's work completed a [Music] [Applause]