Transcript Community Living for People with Intellectual Disabilities

Community Living for People
with Intellectual Disabilities
Paradise Postponed
Introduction
Since the 1970s a variety of jurisdictions
have moved to deinstitutionalise support
for children, people with intellectual
disabilities and people with mental illness.
This has led to the closing or downsizing
of orphanages, institutions and asylums,
and the development of community
supports for these groups of people.
Throughout History
People with an Intellectual Disability have
been described as:
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Fools
Idiots
Retards
Imbeciles
Their experiences have included being:
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Victimised
Locked in cages
Placed in Freak Shows
Tormented in public places
Violated in privates spaces
Today
People with an Intellectual Disability:
• Face an extremely high unemployment.
• Are three times more likely than the
national average to be victims of reported
sexual assault, physical violence or fraud.
• Are over-represented by a factor of 4 in
the correctional system and are twice as
likely to be recidivist.
• Between 40% - 60% experience serious
mental illness.
• By a factor of 4, they are more likely to
have been put under the care of
Department of Child Safety.
• Mothers with Intellectual Disability are
twice as likely to lose their children to
Department of Child Safety
• By a factor of 4 are more likely to be
homeless
Their socialisation remains challenging and
‘Community Living’ has not been Paradise
attained because:
• Society finds it difficult to understand
Intellectual Disability.
• They are a small part of the population –
3%.
• They don’t have a group identity and
therefore don’t advocate for themselves.
• They see themselves as being like everyone
else and try to fit in, by for example saying ‘yes’
to things they don’t understand or going along
with things other people suggest.
• They are blamed for their condition and seen as
fair game.
• They are disadvantaged in our society by the
fact that true value is attained through economic
contribution and participation, which they find
difficult.
The greatest mitigater for people to not become
disadvantaged by their intellectual disability, is a
supportive family and other supportive
relationships.
Community Living Program
• CLP was established in 1989 to support people
with Intellectual Disability to live ‘independently’
in the community. The majority – though not all –
the people who have been referred to CLA have:
• Exited Department of Child Safety
• Come from families that have broken down
• May have come from the mental health or the
corrections system
• May have experience youth homelessness
and/or forced to live in hostels or boarding
houses.
The presenting issues of the people accessing the service have led to
CLP developing a service framework:
Relation
ships
Meaningful
Use of Time
Resources
Mental Health
Safety
and
Security
Physical
Health
However the development of an organisational practice
framework has been fraught with dilemmas, doubts,
contradictions and ethical questions. The following is CLP’s
organisational practice framework at this time.
Holistic Service
Framework
Capacity
Building
Framework
-Relationships
-Resources
-Knowledge
-Decision making
-Complex set of
issues
-Outreach work
-Multiple settings
-Multiple workers
-Multiple
relationships
-Confidentiality
issues
Focus on RELATIONSHIPS
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Work with people and their relationships
To repair and renew
To build new
To assist exit
For example, Homeless Young Man with
an Intellectual Disability
Work involves:
• Repair family relationship
• Assist to leave criminal relationship
• Development of musical buddies
• Development of volunteers around work
• Negotiate family issues
• Network support around
housing/neighbourhoods
Focus on relationships has
consequences for the work:
• Need to negotiate process for sharing
information between people (either completely
closed or sign documents allowing disclosure to
everyone).
• Extended sets of relationships for worker to hold
and different hats for different relationships.
• Other parties may become secondary client or
fully fledged second client.
• May need to engage more than one worker in
relationships’ sets of great complexity.
• Potential for engagement in relationship conflict.
Building KNOWLEDGE
People with an Intellectual Disability generally
have difficulty in:
• Absorbing knowledge
• Linking knowledge
• Retaining knowledge
• May not learn from experience or
consequences.
Often their experience of teaching is people “telling
them things/banking knowledge” which doesn’t
work well.
More effective methodologies include:
• Showing people – getting them to learn by
doing
• Repetition drawing links between action
and consequence
• Building on what people know
• Building on interests.
Example: CLP Literacy Group –
Literacy for Everyday
• Builds curricula from people’s interests/what
they want to do for e.g. organising a birthday
party
• Building on what people know their own
language e.g. person’s way of describing
deteriorating mental health may be “thinking too
much”. This can be used to help them monitor
mental health.
• Reminding of what happened before/drawing the
links – when that happened this happened.
Building DECISION MAKING
• A group of people for who decisions can be
difficult to make.
• A group of people where decisions made can
lead to negative consequences.
• A group decision can be made at the behest of
others and against the person’s interests.
• A group of people who have often been
criticised and made to feel guilty and bad about
the decisions they make.
RESOURCES
• External/Internal Resources
• CLP has supported constituents to
Individually and Collectively access
External and Internal resources.
• Importantly hold principles of looking to
gifts, abilities, underutilised resources and
also the need for social equity.
Examples
• Collective/External Resources
- IYHG
- NCEC
- Holiday Group
• Individual/External Resources
- Funding Packages
• Individual/Internal Resources
- Budgeting
- Saving
- Volunteering gifts
- Small enterprises
• Collective/Internal Resources
- Savings Group/Savings Systems
- NCEC work opportunities
- Holiday Group
What can YOU do to HELP
Some things you can do if you want to assist
people with an Intellectual Disability in
their struggle for a better life:
• Help us to spread the message about the
situation of people with an Intellectual
Disability
– We are happy to present anywhere, anytime,
to anyone.
• Volunteer your support to people with
an Intellectual Disability
• Volunteer with CLP or contact Volunteer
Queensland for other opportunities
• Contacts – Richard Warner at CLP
– Ph – 07-32665633
– Email – [email protected]
– Website – www.communityliving.org.au
- Volunteer Queensland www.volqld.org.au
Support out Research Projects
• Sandy Seymour from WWILD’s Victim of
Crime program is seeking child safety
officers and family members to assist her
in the research into how to support
children’s service workers and parents
with an intellectual disability who have
children in care.
• Contact – Ph – 07-32624066/ email [email protected]
• CLP is conducting research into people
with intellectual disability who have
experiences with the Department of Child
Safety and the foster care system, mental
health system, and the Correctional
system in a study conducted with the
University of Queensland. If you know
anyone who could participate in that study,
please contact Morrie O’Connor on
32665633 or email
[email protected]
Join Discussions
• Paperbag Lunches discussions (see
attached flyer)
• Join CLP in a Blue Skies Discussion –
“Why are people with intellectual disability
over represented in a wide variety of social
disadvantages?”
- Contact – Richard Warner (CLA) on
ph 07-32665633 or
[email protected]