Comments on: Valueing the Work Of A Disabled person’s Organisation http://detrich.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/valueing-the-work-of-a-disabled-persons-organisation/ Just another WordPress.com weblog Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:36:59 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: detrich http://detrich.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/valueing-the-work-of-a-disabled-persons-organisation/#comment-54 detrich Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:01:13 +0000 http://detrich.wordpress.com/?p=47#comment-54 Many thanks Andrew. I had a training session with peer advocates yesterday who were keen to say that the key to the removal of discriminatory barriers is consultation. I rejected this. It is my view that consultation has always been about someone coming to tell you what they are going to do, listening to your cautionary comments and then doing what they said they would do. I have seen scores of disabled people criticising what someone is going to do but the plan to do it still goes ahead. If hundreds of disabled people were consulted this would still be tokenistic. It will always be tokenistic as long as we are listened to without being heard. I have found involvement to be different to consultation. During involvement exercises we sit around the table as unequal partners and we make suggestions on how things could be from the start of a process. then our more equal partners do what they were going to do anyway. But we are still sitting around the table and we are still throwing shit against the wall and you know what.....over time some of it will stick. As involvement is a move on from consultation co-production will be a move on from involvement and i am very optimistic about this. The transformation of social care also calls for leadership from disabled people and again i am reasonably optimistic about this. The difficulty with leadership is who picks our leaders and can we trust them. I received the news of a disabled person's death yesterday and i celebrated. i have not been so happy for a long time. He was a nightmare for disabled people. He was perceived to be a leader and made things hard for us. He was petty. He was small minded. He believed that if he could make it to meetings on time all disabled people could make it on time and as he could do the work without expenses all disabled people should do the work without expenses. Opinion was a strong point. He would sit in conferences and ask self centred questions and lots of them, excluding others who had something to say and he was given carte blanche to be as mean and petty as he liked because he was a former council worker, before the onset of impairment, he knew how councils worked and he was on their side. Sorry, i just needed to offload that. I think the point is i have sympathies with your view but i also think we are evolving and improving as a movement, on a local level, but we have to be careful of the progress we are making. It's a fragile growth thing and things are easily put back. best wishes Many thanks Andrew.
I had a training session with peer advocates yesterday who were keen to say that the key to the removal of discriminatory barriers is consultation. I rejected this. It is my view that consultation has always been about someone coming to tell you what they are going to do, listening to your cautionary comments and then doing what they said they would do. I have seen scores of disabled people criticising what someone is going to do but the plan to do it still goes ahead. If hundreds of disabled people were consulted this would still be tokenistic. It will always be tokenistic as long as we are listened to without being heard.

I have found involvement to be different to consultation. During involvement exercises we sit around the table as unequal partners and we make suggestions on how things could be from the start of a process. then our more equal partners do what they were going to do anyway. But we are still sitting around the table and we are still throwing shit against the wall and you know what…..over time some of it will stick.

As involvement is a move on from consultation co-production will be a move on from involvement and i am very optimistic about this. The transformation of social care also calls for leadership from disabled people and again i am reasonably optimistic about this. The difficulty with leadership is who picks our leaders and can we trust them. I received the news of a disabled person’s death yesterday and i celebrated. i have not been so happy for a long time. He was a nightmare for disabled people. He was perceived to be a leader and made things hard for us. He was petty. He was small minded. He believed that if he could make it to meetings on time all disabled people could make it on time and as he could do the work without expenses all disabled people should do the work without expenses. Opinion was a strong point. He would sit in conferences and ask self centred questions and lots of them, excluding others who had something to say and he was given carte blanche to be as mean and petty as he liked because he was a former council worker, before the onset of impairment, he knew how councils worked and he was on their side. Sorry, i just needed to offload that. I think the point is i have sympathies with your view but i also think we are evolving and improving as a movement, on a local level, but we have to be careful of the progress we are making. It’s a fragile growth thing and things are easily put back.

best wishes

]]> By: Andrew Robinson http://detrich.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/valueing-the-work-of-a-disabled-persons-organisation/#comment-53 Andrew Robinson Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:11:30 +0000 http://detrich.wordpress.com/?p=47#comment-53 Yours is the first I have heard where it is truly a partnership, all other examples of involvement are simply tokenistic reporting of what has gone on without any involvement and certainly not paid involvement of disabled groups. Yours is the first I have heard where it is truly a partnership, all other examples of involvement are simply tokenistic reporting of what has gone on without any involvement and certainly not paid involvement of disabled groups.

]]>