Disabled Opt for independence

By Padraig O'Morain (Irish Times Tuesday the 1st of March 1994)

"We will have more balls in the future and I will be glad to be the president of those balls."

You wouldn't say a thing like that 20 years ago to an audience made up of people with disabilities and of able-bodied people who work in the disability industry.

There would be the fear of confusing the poor crathurs in the wheelchairs or with the white sticks to know what you were talking about, and of drawing down the wrath of every priest in the audience.

But something has been happening among people with disabilities over the past few years which has seen the emergence of a confident and assertive movement which is beginning to chalk up successes.

To dispose of the balls: the reference is to fund raising balls and it was made clear by the singer Liam O'Maonlai, president of the Center for Independent Living at the recent launch of "Operation Get Out".

The center, a voluntary group, is a product of the new, assertive mood among people with disabilities. Run by and for disabled people, it aims to promote practical independence within the community.

At the moment for instance, 25 people, mainly from Dublin but also in Tullamore, Co. Offaly, and in Donegal, are living independent lives with the help of "personal assistants", who are FAS trainees whose allowances is topped up by the centre. That two year programme is due to end in the autumn but the centre will be working hard to get it extended to 250 people throughout the state.

Last week's event was another of the centre's projects. Operation "Get Out" will in its first phase, see 10 people move out of residential care to private flats with back up from the centre and with personal assistants. The centre does not see itself as being at odds with the providers of institutional care. But it does want people to have a genuine choice about whether to opt for institutional care.

"For too long residential care has been the only option open to people with significant disabilities." said Jana Overbo, the centre's development officer. "Without the existence of a comprehensive personal assistance service, people with disabilities are not afforded the opportunity to live in the community with the necessary back-up and support.

"As a result, people with disabilities are confined to living in institutional and residential care settings. This in turn, has led to disabled people's systematic and continual exclusion from mainstream economic and social life."

Operation "Get-out" will attempt to get rid of the notion of people with disabilities as passive dependants and "in need of care," both of which are reflected in current community-care policies and residential care. Instead, the focus will be on active participation, user control and assistance.

First to move into a flat a month ago under the programme were Michael Keegan and his brother, Thomas. Both have muscular dystrophy and have lived for years in St. Mary's Hospital, Baldoyle.

So far, Michael has found the experience "easier than I thought." What may have helped towards this is that the hospital "thought of you as adults" from the age of 16 on.

His days are spent at the Centre Remedial Clinic in Clontarf, where he is doing a full-time computer course.

"I haven't really started going out yet," he says of the evenings. He shops in a nearby shopping centre.

After watching the In From the Margins programme on disability on RTE one night he decided it was time to make his own decision led him to Operation "Get Out"

Moving out on one's own takes courage enough in itself but this is a one year programme and while the centre will, hopefully, have no trouble in raising the money for its continuation, the element of uncertainty is there.

He hopes his move will inspire other people to do the same. He continues to have many friends among residents and staff at St. Mary's.

The Center for Independent Living may be a relatively small organisation and most people may never have heard of it but it has an impressive track record in putting its energy, reputation and money - and anybody else's that it can get - where its mouth is. It can be contacted at Carmichael House, Brunswick Street, Dublin 7. Tel. 01-8730986

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Disabled Opt for independence

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