Responses to Moving on
Our panel offer their personal responses to the fourth programme in the series, Moving on.
 Dr Roger Banks is a Consultant in the Psychiatry of Learning Disability with Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust, North Wales. He has a special interest in psychotherapy for people with learning disabilities and is a founder member of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability. He is Vice President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. | I felt uncomfortable watching this programme. It was not the content but rather the invoked memories of my own agonies on leaving home to go to university. What a maelstrom of new relationships, responsibilities, decisions and self-organisation. What a ridiculous mess one managed to make of things on occasions; such embarrassing errors of judgement and emotional heartbreaks and such appalling examples of bad and antisocial behaviour. What a fantastic time! And if only I knew then what I know now, how much more wild I could have been! In my work, I see some organisations spending much time and effort in helping people with learning disabilities to live conservative, middle-of-the road, risk-free lives. I have seen innumerable 'person-centred plans' that aim for a week in Blackpool or a trip to Disneyworld. I cannot recall having seen one that says "I want to shave my head, get a nose-ring, bunjee jump from the Eiffel tower and eat 14 Big Macs at one sitting". Of course, as a middle-aged father of teenage sons, I was also moved by the experience of the parents and what a difficult emotional task it is to allow your child the freedom to begin to experiment with life, to make mistakes, to experience those challenges in life which previously you have managed or moderated for them. At the end of the programme I was left wanting to know more about what happened next, not so much to the individuals with disabilities but to their parents. What new challenges were they having to face in their own lives and relationships now that their disabled child had moved away? |
 Dan Goodley is Reader in Disability Studies and director of the University of Sheffield Centre of Applied Disability Studies. He has written widely in the area of disability studies. Recent publications include Self-advocacy in the lives of people with learning difficulties, Disability and Psychology (edited with Rebecca Lawthom) and Another Disability Reader (edited with Geert Van Hove). He is also advisor to the self-advocacy group Huddersfield People First. | Fierce growls for when one door closes and another opens... This film picks up on a common ambition of people with the label of learning difficulties: to leave institutional or family living, to find a place of their own, on their own. Not to be second best, for their "whole life has been second best". To decide what they would like; "rather than being told what they like". Here are stories of making a leap of faith. Formal and informal support. Parents as the greatest allies. The stories also remind us that, sometimes, families can spend a little too much time together. Children can outgrow their folks. Living outside of the family home can help families to rediscover one another ("She’s not mixing with a couple of old fogies anymore"). Its clearly hard to give up on what we know. Yet, with the right support, families can be helped to move on individually and together. The support of friends can clearly help. I was reminded of the potency and potential of the self-advocacy movement in the UK which should be drawn upon in supported people with learning disabilities into independent living. |
 Micheline Mason is an artist, writer and trainer/consultant on disability and inclusion. She is a mother of a disabled young adult, and was the director of the Alliance for Inclusive Education for fifteen years. She is also a trained counsellor working within the Re-Evaluation Co-Counselling Community. | This programme was a joy to watch. It chronicles the leaving home of two adults with learning difficulties, but it was more than that. It recorded the release from captivity of two wonderful people’s spirits. Their delight in choosing their own things, making friends, falling in and out of love, crying and laughing together about this great adventure called life, was so hopeful for us all. When society offers the right support, in this case appropriate living accommodation, a parent describes it as "divine intervention". They too were released from the fear that their beloved son or daughter would never find a valued place in this world outside the family home. Although the grim walls of the long-stay hospitals are now mostly demolished, we are reminded that the inmates are still fighting for their freedom. One mother said that all these experiences should have been had when they were 13 or 14, not 30 or 40, and I did wonder how well prepared in the areas of safe sex and family planning they had been. My guess is not at all, but I hope I am wrong. |
Content last updated: 05/12/2006
