How do we ensure choice, control and quality is at the heart of a new social care system?

On July 7th, Robert Droy from SCIL was asked to address the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Care. Niall Dixon from the Kings Fund was also speaking.

An audience of around 100 people, including around 30 members of Parliament and Peers from House of Lords fired questions at both Robert and Niall for over an hour.

As well as much speculation about what might or might not be in the green paper some of the key points that were discussed (in no particular order) included:

• Social Care should have an equal footing with Health Care. Lack of investment in social care will cost more in the future. Preventative work is often talked about however ever tighter eligibility criteria leaves increasing numbers of people, particularly older people at risk of developing more serious impairments and higher support needs in the future.

• Everybody, regardless of their age or impairment, should be able to have choice and control over the support they receive.  These are basic human rights, not just about getting up in the morning and going to bed at night but living a full and active life. Human rights cannot be at the whim of the local authorities. Disabled people should have guaranteed minimum entitlements wherever they live in the country. Support must also be portable.

• Over the last 25 years, CILs have been at the forefront of developing the Personalisation agenda, starting with Direct Payments and now moving towards self directed support.

• Many CILs are struggling to compete against some of the bigger non-user led organisations, particularly as many local authorities feel compelled to competitively tender for many support services that are best delivered by CILs.

• Access to Peer Advocacy leading to Self Advocacy are essential to ensure that  ALL users can take full advantage of the personalised agenda. However funding for Advocacy services are thin on the ground.

• Training for Disabled People and Personal Assistants should be available but should not be a barrier to encouraging ‘new’ people to enter the social care workforce.

• Integrating funding streams should not mean people lose their basic entitlement to certain benefits e.g. DLA / AA

• Many Disabled People also experience multiple discrimination because they are lesbian or gay or come from a black / minority ethnic community. The Government needs to listen to their views.

SCIL Announce Landmark Conference

SCIL are pleased to announce an important conference for Disabled People regarding their human and legal rights.

Date:         Tuesday 28 October 2008

Time:        10.30am – 4.00pm

Venue:      Unity 12, 9-19 Rose Road, Southampton, SO14 6TE

The keynote speaker will be Luke Clements who is a Professor at Cardiff Law School and is renowned for his academic research and litigation work around the rights of people who experience social exclusion such as Disabled People, Carers and Travellers.

Luke Clements

The aims of the conference are to:

• Understand Disabled People’s rights to Independent Living

• Understand the impact of UK & European legislation

• Understand where the new United Nations Convention on the rights of Disabled People might help

 In afternoon workshops you will have an opportunity to:

• Discuss individual issues with Luke Clements

• Discuss how involvement with Skills for Care may assist in the improvement of services (with other service users)

• Discuss how working with SCIL and other organisations run by Disabled People could make our collective voice stronger

The conference for Disabled People ONLY will be held in our new fully accessible conference suite at Unity 12. More information and a booking form are downloadable below but demand for places are expected to be high so please return the booking form as soon as possible.

conference-booking-form1

Harrow Council Ignored Rights of Disabled People

Just before Christmas, a key case about Disability rights and changes in eligibility criteria was decided in the High Court. The judge found a local council had acted unlawfully when introducing its new policy because it had breached its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act.

The case, brought by the Public Law Project (PLP) on behalf of three service-users in Harrow, was a challenge to Harrow Council’s decision in July this year to restrict the support services it currently provides to people with critical needs only, withdrawing support from those who had substantial needs.The latter category includes those whose independence is at substantial risk if their needs are not addressed, including those who have only partial choice and control over their immediate environment, an inability to carry out the majority of personal care or domestic routines or an inability to maintain the majority of social support systems and relationships.

Local groups had grave concerns that such a restriction in services would leave hundreds of Disabled and Older people without essential support.

In the High Court, Judge David Mackie QC held that the decision to introduce the new policy was unlawful as the Council had failed to meet its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act. He described how the Council had failed to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination against disabled people and to promote equality of opportunity: “there is no evidence that this legal duty and its implications were drawn to the attention of decision-takers”.

The Council will now have to reconsider the issue ensuring that they meet this fundamental duty and protect the rights of disabled people when deciding whether to go ahead with the new policy or not.

The full court judgement can be read at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/3064.html

Race, Disability and Human Rights

ThIs post was written by Berni Vincent.

The new Equality and Human Rights Commission was launched on October 1 2007 resulting in the merger of the Disability Rights Commission, Commission for Racial Equality and Equal Opportunities Commission.

One of the last events that the Disability Rights Commission held jointly with Equalities National Council was a conference looking at Race, Disability and Human Rights on September 12. The event from my point of view was about raising awareness, listening to others and gaining some understanding of the multi oppression that my fellow Disabled people experience.

It was good to see so many Disabled people from Black and Minority Ethnic Communities (BME) coming together to share common experiences and address ways of breaking down barriers of multi oppression and exclusion. 

BME communities are more likely to experience poverty and isolation.  For example among families that include a Disabled adult the risk of poverty is 36 per cent in white families, 52 percent in Indian families, 63 percent in Pakistani families and 83 per cent in Bangladesh families.

With regard to family members providing unpaid support; assumptions are often made that BME Disabled people’s support will be met by a close family member, with little consideration to the disempowering impact this will have on family relationships or individual family members’ right to develop their own potential and aspirations. Further more the meaning of Independent Living and the Social Model of Disability has yet to be fully understood in BME communities generally.

In a workshop led by the ‘Black Men Moving forward project’ that provides advocacy support across the Criminal Justice System, mental health service users gave personal testimony of surviving the institutional racism and neglect across the Criminal Justice system.  Disabled People generally do not have their needs met within the judicial system, and a high majority of people with mental health impairments receive no support or medical treatment. There were examples quoted of medical records not being transported to prison resulting in lack of vital medication or medical intervention at point of entry on release from the prison service.   

So what needs to happen if things are to change; the starting point has to be ensuring that public bodies grasp their responsibility to ensure BME Disabled People enjoy the same freedom, respect and equality as everyone else.  Time and investment needs to be made to adequately fund peer support organisations that can continue to lead the way offer support and influence policy design.  

The responsibility lies with us all – public bodies, service providers, and the voluntary sector. We must work together to break down barriers of isolation and mistrust and find ways to listen and understand each other issues and experiences. We must believe It is possible to break the oppressive chains that isolate multi oppressed groups in BME communities.  We need to actively work together to bring the barriers down. 

SCIL’s Annual Report 2006 – 2007

With SCIL’s AGM just around the corner, SCIL are pleased to release their annual report for 2006/2007. As you will see, it has been yet another rollercoaster of a year with some low points but also some real signs of optimism for the future.

We are just about to start phase 2 of our redevelopment of Unity 12. Once completed, we will have fully accessible conference room facilities, in addition to extra office space that will be let to like-minded organisations.

Anyway, I don’t want to reveal all the hidden gems you will find in the annual report. Give it a read, you might find it more interesting than you thought – just click the link below.

SCIL’s Annual Report 2006 - 2007

The above file is a PDF file so you will need Adobe Acrobat on your computer and it may take a few seconds to download.

Valencia – CIL = Empowering: We Make The Change

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