Southampton Centre for Independent Living

DOVE is a showroom hosting aids and adaptations for Disabled People. We are a charity located in Cosham and aim to provide impartial information on equipment as well as provide a free peer advocacy service. 

After 11 years, DOVE has had a management change and has shifted its focus to follow the Social Model of Disability.  We believe Disabled People have a right to live independently and should make their own choices. Independent living is having control over your life and a say over what happens. 

The showroom displays stairlifts, walk in showers and baths and various bath lifts. Two accessible kitchens are on display and within these, kitchen aids for people with a sensory impairment along with equipment for people with mobility impairments.  Later in the year we will be reopening our sensory room. Watch this space!

Our resource library contains information from an extensive array of suppliers and manufacturers of most aids and adaptations. We are looking at extending our database of approved and experienced fitters/builders of adaptations. All referrals are welcome please. 

Our peer advocacy service, which commenced in February this year, is already proving to be a huge success. Appointments are necessary and are available on Mondays and Tuesdays 11am – 3pm.

Many suppliers are selling over the internet, or via catalogues and simply do not have a showroom. One of our objectives at DOVE is to encourage and invite people to visit the showroom with the purpose to view and try equipment before they purchase the product elsewhere, or before installation by your local authority. 

As we are part funded by Local Authorities, one of our remits is to offer equipment training to occupational therapists.  OTs request the type of training they require and we organise it. We have hosted several successful training days to OTs on stair lifts, walk in showers and baths. This also is a free service and enables OTs to keep up to date on the latest products available on the market. 

Other services we provide are: Educational days to students of health and social care, OT undergraduates and college students;Training on Disability Equality and Disability Discrimination Act; Presentations on the Social Model of Disability.

Our staff and volunteers would be happy to help you, so if you require any aids, equipment or an adaptation in your home, why not come to D.O.V.E. Our opening hours are Monday – Thursday 11am – 3pm Alternatively, we can be contacted on 02392 787 788 or admin@d-o-v-e.org 

We look forward to welcoming you to D.O.V.E  

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) is an important new duty aimed at promoting disability equality across the public sector. The DED, also referred to as the general duty, sets out what public bodies must have due regard to in order to promote equality of opportunity.Most public bodies are also covered by specific duties, which set out a framework to assist public bodies in meeting their general duty. All public bodies covered by the specific duties must:

Publish a Disability Equality Scheme (including within it an Action Plan)

Involve disabled people in producing the Scheme and Action Plan

Demonstrate they have taken actions in the Scheme and achieved appropriate outcomes

Report on progress and review and revise the Scheme regularly. 

In direct response to this new Disability Equality Duty which comes into force in December 2006, organisations of Disabled People from across the South East are joining forces to launch South East Disability Equality Council (SEDEC), a regional one-stop-shop for public bodies to be able to get informed, consistent advice and guidance around Disability Equality.

The new Duty gives rise to new challenges for public bodies, in particular the continuing involvement of Disabled People and for the first time ever, public bodies will have to take responsibility for tackling the institutional discrimination that Disabled People face.

SEDEC can offer public bodies information, advice and support in order for them to fully understand their responsibilities regarding the new Duty. SEDEC can also assist organisations to draw up their Disability Equality Scheme and monitor their progress. 

Through SEDEC, subscribing public bodies will have access to relevant, up to date information gathered through consultation and audit processes as well as professional advice and guidance to enable them to meet the standards through publications, events and an ongoing dialogue.  

SEDEC will be made up of Disabled People from across the South East who are well informed about the issues and the Social Model and will be setting the standard for Disability Equality in the South East. SEDEC also offers an opportunity for Disabled People to become involved by offering Disability Equality Training and a chance to be part of the council. Ian Loynes, Chief Executive of Southampton Centre for Independent Living said ‘ SEDEC will be an opportunity for Disabled People to lead the way in achieving true Disability Equality’.

There is still time to register to attend SEDEC’s launch event ‘Ten Years On’ at The HG Wells Conference Centre in Woking, on December 4th, giving public bodies and Disabled People a chance to reflect upon what has been gained since the implementation of the DDA and what we hope to achieve in the future with the new duty.

The keynote speaker will be Caroline Gooding who is Director of Legislative Change at the Disability Rights Commission. Caroline is responsible for advising on key long term cross cutting disability issues, as well as the overall impact of the Disability Discrimination Act.

Conference participants will also hear froim Disabled People across the region about the impact that the DDA has had on their lives and what they hope to see happen in the next 10 years.It will also be an opportunity for public bodies to share best practice.

Whether you are a Disabled Person interested in getting involved with SEDEC or you work for a public body and want to find out how SEDEC can help you, it will well worth attending.  You can register on the SEDEC website or for more information, you can call Amanda on 023 8020 2650.  

Valencia in Spain was the location for one of the largest gatherings of Independent Living activists in many years. Organised by the European Network for Independent Living (ENIL), delegates from 14 countries met for 3 days between the 2nd and 4th November 2006 to discuss a whole range of issues regarding independent living. In this short series of articles we hope to give you a flavour of some of the issues that were discussed and encourage you to get involved in future events that are planned in 2007

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Valencia is the 3^rd largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona and will play host to the America’s Cup in June 2007. Valencia is a city of two halves with a beautiful ‘old’ town and a more modern commercial area. Between these two areas, a grand and imposing City of Arts and Sciences has been designed by Santiago Calatrava which comprises of an IMAX cinema, science museum, a large oceanarium and a new opera house reminiscent of Sydney Opera House.  

The conference was entitled ‘CIL = Empowering: We Make The Change’ and several influential speakers from the Independent Living movement spoke, including Adolf Ratzka and Colin Barnes. The meeting was opened by Alicia de Miguel from the Ministry of Welfare of the Valencian Regional Government who was instrumental in securing a Secretariat office for ENIL in Valencia for the next year. Alicia de Miguel confirmed the Valencian Regional Government’s commitment to the independent living philosophy and hoped to work with ENIL to promote this cause.

John Evans, the President of ENIL, welcomed the setting up of the Secretariat in Valencia and said ‘For the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL), the main aim of this meeting is enhancing the European CILs’ network, in order to find common strategies to develop Independent Living and to strengthen the IL movement in Europe. That’s why ENIL has brought together those IL activists working in CILs from all over Europe: to exchange ideas, experiences, and good practice. It is necessary to strengthen our links now when the Commission is keen on supporting and developing community living based alternatives and Independent Living as an alternative to institutions. It is also good at the moment to be united when many EU member states are cutting back the resources supporting disabled people led organisations.’ 

Representatives from ULOBA, based in Norway, presented a new book that they had commissioned called ‘Folk’. This book contains strong images of Disabled People along with quotes from people committed to human rights for all

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You can see a preview of the book here  

Javier Romanach who is the Co-Founder of the Independent Living forum in Spain, introduced a new concept that they are working on in Spain for ‘Functional Diversity’. ‘Functional Diversity’ is a different way of looking at the issue of impairment. There are a range of aspects to the way people function. These include Aesthetic, Physical, Sensory, Social, Emotional, Cognitive and Spiritual. Each of us have a different capacity to function in each of these aspects, for example, an athlete or dancer may have a very high physical capacity but an average cognitive capacity. A scientist may be the opposite. Similarly a person labelled as having impairment may have low capacity in a certain aspect but high capacity in another aspect of function. Functional diversity is therefore a way of thinking that takes away the boxes of “impaired” and “normal”. It allows all people to share in the complex array of human function and benefit from their strengths.

Javier’s presentation raised a number of issues. Some delegates thought that the concept was putting the focus back on the individual rather than concentrating on changing society. Other delegates voiced the concern that it was harking back to the days where people argued that everyone has a ‘disability’ in one way or another. This of course denies the impact that society’s reaction to an impairment has on whether a person is labelled as ‘disabled’ or not and thus discriminated against.

This discussion illustrated very well the very different cultural backgrounds the countries represented came from. Throughout the three days, there was much discussion around language – functional diversity vs. impairment, citizens vs. users, Disabled People vs. People with Disabilities. Despite many common themes developing throughout the three days, the language of the Disability movement remains a highly debatable issue.

More news from Valencia can be found here

For nine years, the Consumer Audit Project at SCIL has provided an innovative service where community care services could be assessed by whether they actually delivered positive outcomes for users rather than merely measuring meaningless numbers. 

Consumer Audit trained and supported disabled people to develop the skills that were needed in order to engage with the users of the services being audited to discover whether the service was actually meeting these outcomes.   Many auditors like myself developed the confidence and skills that enabled them to secure paid employment both at SCIL and in other organisations.

Consumer Audits were not just tokenistic ‘consultation’ exercises, they were a truly different way to provide services with information about how to improve and develop. This new way of auditing garnered press and publicity not just in Hampshire but across the country. Hampshire County Council were rightly very proud of the project, as they were the main funder.

And then the letter came…… ‘We regret to inform you……blah blah’. Hampshire County Council were withdrawing the funding from the end of September 2006.

It seems particularly ironic that just two months before the introduction of the Disability Equality Duty, which require public authorities to engage with Disabled People, Hampshire County Council were withdrawing funding.

Chris Hunt, who has been with Consumer Audit virtually since it began, left SCIL this week and we wish her well in the future. Despite losing the funding, SCIL has built up a great deal of expertise in this field in nine years, and we have proven that true involvement of Disabled People can reap rewards. We hope that other organisations will continue to see the benefit of Consumer Audit and will be willing to purchase the service. The core funding of Consumer Audit may have gone but our expertise and our belief in the methodology continues at SCIL.

For those of you who have been reading the blog since it started, you will hopefully have seen a number of improvements as the weeks have gone on, such as the inclusion of pictures and logos. I hope it has made the blog look more interesting as well as accessible.

 I have received many comments regarding the size and type of font. SCIL’s standard font for letters, information etc is Arial 14. Unfortunately this blog site does weird things if the font is too large, however after much experimenting, it seems to be happy with Arial 12. This will therefore be our new default font for the blog from now on.

I am keen to hear your comments and views on how you would like to see this blog develop. My next idea is to try and post some video footage on the blog, however as most of the work I, as well as other contributors, do on the blog is in our own time, I cannot guarantee implementing suggestions immediately.

Thanks for supporting the blog. We have had over 1500 hits in just six weeks which is quite impressive and hopefully more and more people will discover the site over time, so please spread the word and keep on blogging.

I last visited Paris in 1992 and did not find it the easiest city to get around in using a wheelchair. It was therefore with some trepidation that I decided to have a short break in Paris. Why did I choose Paris - well I was mightily impressed by the Eurostar when I used it to travel to Strasbourg via Paris last year. The 2 wheelchair spaces on each Eurostar train are located in First Class and Eurostar gives the wheelchair user and their companion a substantial discount on the train ticket. You are also treated to a 3 course meal with wine and champagne. Now that can’t be bad.

The Eurostar arrives at the Gare Du Nord which is about a mile from the centre of Paris, however there are some fairly regular accessible buses that pass the Gare Du Nord and take you into the City Centre.

We stayed at the Novotel Paris Les Halles which is very near the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral. and the Georges Pompidou Centre. It is not a cheap hotel however the rooms were spacious and the bathroom had plenty of room for a wheelchair user. The hotel bar was on a raised platform up 3-4 steps with no ramp, but with at least six bars / cafes and restaurants just outside the main entrance, it wasn’t an issue.

Most pavements had dropped kerbs and tactile paving, however most traffic crossings did not have an audible signal when the crossing light was green, so people with visual impairments may require more guiding than they would in the UK.

At least 50% of shops and restaurants had at least 1 step at their entrance, even some of the major stores like GAP and McDonalds. Most bars / cafes had outside seating areas so if you are a wheelchair user, I would not recommend Paris in the middle of winter. 

It was also a little discouraging to note that virtually every ‘obviously’ Disabled Person I saw was either American or English. This accounts for why Disabled Access only seem to have been actively considered in the tourist areas.

The Louvre is an excellent case in point. It is completely accessible, they publish a comprehensive access guide in French and English. They also provide audio guides and have a tactile gallery for people with visual impairments.  The variety of exhibits there was bewildering and if you are a fan of art, sculpture, history or the ‘Da Vinci Code’, it is a must-see.

Of course, the number one attraction in Paris has got to be the Eiffel Tower. Wheelchair users can only go to the second floor but the views are still spectacular.

Compared to 1992, access in Paris is a lot easier but it still lags behind other major cities in the UK, Europe and the USA. If you enjoy the pavement cafe culture, people watching,  magnificient architecture then you’ll love Paris

If you are considering visiting Paris, I would recommend the Access in Paris website. It has lots of useful information and although the new edition of their guidebook is not out till 2007, if you contact them with specific information, they will be happy to oblige. I must declare an interest as I was involved with the Access Project for about 15 years and was one of their surveyors for the London, Paris and Israel guidebooks. The strength of the guidebooks was that we tried to simply describe the barriers at each location and let Disabled People themselves decide what they could or couldn’t manage.

Paris may not be the most accessible city in the world but if you’re not keen on flying but still want to sample some European culture then give Paris a try.