Friday, 12 June 2009 10:39
Terry Couchman
 Are you being Bullied, Humiliated, Abused, or Prejudiced Against?Whichever Way, Where Ever, Whatever Sex, Job, Faith, or Culture and at Whenever Age. Abuse of any kind is unacceptble?Lots of people are abused and most just sit, or lay and take it. It causes serious mental and physical ill health, now and later. It disrupts your life and stops you progressing and thriving. Some times you hope to help the abusive person sort their problems and stop the abuse. That just makes you a sitting target. Get it stopped while you can. If you feel abused then you probably have been, but it may sometimes be 'strangely' difficult to know how, why when and even by who! It is also sometime difficut to work out when it all started. This is not unusual. Go to: Emergency ; Child Abuse ; Physical Assault ; Abuse & Mental Health ; Abuse Links ; Go to Main Site for more details: www.visitweb.org. Most of what you will read on this site could apply to you in some way, now, or later on, if you don't recognise what is happening and get it stopped. It is the people with the Strongest Wills, the most Caring, Socially Aware, Just Minded & Thoughtful, that can become 'victims'. It is the self-interested, bombastic, least considerate people & weakest willed who become Bullies & Abusers. Size & strength makes little difference.    Are you feeling Distressed, Depressed, Anxious, Fearful, or Paranoid?
These fears can take over and rule our lives. The are the social consequences of abuse, neglect and institutional prejudices. These are usually quite natural reactions to distressing circumstances. Recognise these 'symptoms' are your head telling you to get something important sorted out, or that you need a break from something. Watch for the signs and don't ignore them. If you ignore you head you body usually suffers in the end. Don't kid yourself, your strength can end up being your weakness. Sticking with stress and anxious situations is for emergencies only. Don't make a career of it. Go to: Abuse & Mental Health ; Surviving Systems ; Institutional Prejudice; More Links to Follow. Go to Main Site for more details: www.visitweb.org.
Last Updated on Friday, 23 April 2010 17:23
Tuesday, 01 June 2010 05:28
Administrator: Terry Couchman
One of my boys was identified as ADHD, asthmatic and considered to be a slow learner and suspected as autistic spectrum. I refused to accept it and he is now well balanced. Enjoying school and doing well in the things he is naturally good at.
A client of mine has just been diagnosed as 'borderline' LD and 'not' autistic any longer (but having features). It is about time. He was found to have a hearing problem, speech impediment, and his communication and thinking was very frustrated and agitated because people treated him as if he was stupid.
He was living in the community with some support. He lost his dad and a good friend and this was not dealt with. He had a breakdown and his behaviour became socially unacceptable, he went to hospital under Mental Health Section and recovered very quickly. He has been stuck there for 6 months as a voluntary patient.
When I got cooperation with health Services and got him new accommodation and support at the level he needed and wanted. The Psychiatrist insisted that he have 24/7, in his face supervision, because of how he was when he had the breakdown. This was at the last minute.
At one point, frustrated with being bossed around, he walked off from the confrontation. A staff member chased after him and grabbed him (it is a secure Unit). He hit out at the man, who took too aggressive an approach and was reported under our 'Vulnerable Adult' strategy.
Six months of psychological imprisonment, using every delay possible and then Psychiatry scupper the chance of him moving back to the flat he has put a deposit on. The excuse? 'Best Interests' and 'Risks', with no current evidence, other than the 'autistic' presentation that people had better start getting used to as being part of the 'normal' spectrum.
I ask whose best interests? The 'risks' are the 'risk fears' of those professionals who are too insecure to make good professional judgments and put in workable levels of support, in keeping with the person's needs and wishes.
It is a complete disgrace and against every positive experience I have had in 35 years of work in this field. In no other way of life, or social work, do I see such flagrant abuse of personal rights and freedom, resulting from keeping people isolated from real life learning experiences.
I no other area of social care , or any social circumstances, (outside of serious criminal behaviour), do I see such blatant examples of treating the potential 'victims' of the behaviour of others as if they were the 'perpetrators' of abuses. If a girl dressed up for going out on the town was described as provoking rape, there would be an outcry!
'Keeping People Save' in this life restricting way, makes the person understandable distressed and angry and eventually leads to deteriorating mental health. What is the matter with people who think in this way? It is as if they are too embarrassed about disability and do not want to inflict it upon the normal population.
It has to stop. People with Learning Disabilities and Autism must be given every freedom and positive support, to gain real life experiences and then live real lives, like the rest of us. I am sick of the excuses for 'restrictive' practices and the justifications we give ourselves for provoking the very behaviours we then use to psychologically, legally and socially beat people up for.
Behaviour problems? The rest of us would feel the same, and probably act worse, put in the same restricting position. There is too much 'oh the poor things' thinking here. When they are adult enough & responsible, enough they can speak their own minds, when encouraged and supported to do so.
I know. I ran the one of the first 'Service User Conferences 35 years ago'. It was a great success and the lives of dozens of people changed in that locality and people learned to understand. The same was done elsewhere. I really had hoped things had moved on a bit and in some places, they have. There are still worrying examples of institutional abuse and neglect, sometime in 'the best possible taste'.
Let us stop killing the spirit of these abused and isolated people, in the name of 'best interest' and their 'safety'. It is done to protect the legal backs of professionals, save them being blamed for embarrassment of communities. My own experience is that there are plenty of people willing to accept others as they are, include them where they can and be very supportive, once the understand the problems.
There are no excuses. Lock up the abusers, the drunks and yobs, not their victims. Put in protections for all vulnerable people and train the police and other institutions / authorities to be responsive, skilful and supporting of vulnerable people, from whatever cause. That is a requirement under the Law I the UK.
Let people live ordinary lives, as part of the range of 'ordinary people'. Sometimes, people make us sick. Stop ‘locking people up’ under the excuse of ‘safe practice’ and ‘best practice’. This is all about making life easier for professionals not the clients / patients.
It is abusive and against every principle of Human Rights, Disability Rights and International as well as National Law.
It is also Undignified and Unethical.
The justifications can be proved false and misguided and ‘Best Practice’ shows how things can be done much better.
There are no longer any excuses.
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Monday, 18 May 2009 10:16
Terry Couchman
We interrupt our normal programs in order to bring you important Local News, concerning 'your' local communities. These issues will affect you, sooner rather than later (and probably are right now).Some services, provided to make your community safe, more secure & caring, are effectively being reduced in funding & staffing; in the name of 'improvements'. Executives Managers cannot acknowledge this, even if they want to. They are effectively gagged. Most of us want the best for people. We are in a time of financial crisis. This will affect services and increase the pressures upon existing staff. There was already some urgency, because of needed improvements in services within rural areas and towns. They are many years behind the Cities, for lots of complicated reasons. There is already a serious impact upon the health and welfare of vulnerable residents of our communities. Moreover, further people are becoming distressed daily. This is an additional burden in their lives. It is for this reason we are going to focus on urgent, 'local' Community Care matters, particularly over the next year or two. We will be concentrating on the Wiltshire Service areas initially, as this is where our Community Projects are currently operating, but these problems will also be relevant to other Counties and other Local Community & Health Authority services. It is a thankless task, as we all naturally dislike criticism. Most personal services will be seriously affected. We intend to set up a regional Website over the next few weeks. We hope that professionals get to realise that these criticisms are actually to the benefit of clients, professionals and manager alike. This period must be turned into an opportunity. Please check out the Headlines below. To understand what we mean by 'critical perspective' See: The Basis for Criticism). The accounts in the Regional section are some of the more urgent issues recently identified. Some will seem frivolous or exaggerated, by comparison with the bigger issues that the media, highlight. You actually have to be on the ‘receiving end’, in order to appreciate the seriousness of the impact more fully. To understand fully, you have to realise that one small issue magnifies all the other small issues in people’s lives. Form filling and complex & intimidating procedures, which we normally just about manage, become unbearable under circumstances of stress and depression. There are so many examples that it will take months to get them all fully recorded and logged onto the website. I ask that you consider each item as 'Another brick n the wall', blocking people from getting the help that they urgently need, early on in a developing crisis. Some of the current Headlines in this section, relate to issues that I have researched over many years, but which our network members (and others they are in direct contact with) regularly experience locally. This problem is not exclusively to Wiltshire. Most regions, counties and towns are affected but rural areas and towns are particularly distressed. Our basic assertion is; That Health & Social Care Institutions now effectively ‘Assess’ in order to 'Exclude' people, rather than Assess to 'Include' people, as is required by the Disability & Community Care Acts and the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This has a status of Law, along with UN & EC Treaties on Human Rights. This tendency is rarely due to an intention to deprive people of the help and support that they urgently need. Most professionals are committed, ethically & personally, to providing a full and fair service to anyone in need. We have all become too focussed on accounting and policing services; to catch the few who abuse entitlements. This has been a very expensive decision. It is the current inefficient & ineffective use of many resources and a lack of recognition of the consequences of failing to help at an early stage, which we vigorously challenge. Government, accounting and legal officials have not helped; by insisting on recording in the way that we do. Professionals are increasingly Bookkeepers, Data Processors and Number Crunchers. This has provided no real protection to services, or to clients - it is actually an ineffective hindrance and reduces essential services and ‘increases’ the problems experienced by all. We will show and evidence how this blinkers view has distracted, confounded and damages services. We are dealing with facts here, not opinions. Opinions and dogma are convincing, but they are not cheap. Providing support to people to remain productively independent costs less than putting the increasing failures right and filtering out the relative few malingerers (who clearly have a problem in their own right).
© Terry Couchman, May - Aug. 2009
Last Updated on Sunday, 07 February 2010 14:41
Tuesday, 01 June 2010 05:19
Terry Couchman
The Child Care situation in Australia seems to be appalling. The balance seems to have swung too far in men’s favour once more. In the UK, we are famous for our Victorian roots in childcare. Men had most of the say in women’s and children’s lives in the 19th Century and half the 20th Century. They were seen as possessions.
As women became liberated, so did our children. The progress was slow, but by the middle of the 1960’s the ‘legal’ situation in parenting was mainly in the Mother’s favour. Women still suffered other social injustices & prejudices and male violence towards women was still prevalent (and largely still accepted as ‘normal’ to a degree).
I can remember this well, because from the age of six years I saw (and heard) my mother being beaten and humiliated (not just hit now and then). The same was the case with us kids, not just smacks. We suffered serious beating and sexual abuse and some of my brothers and sisters were seriously damaged by this.
My Mother (and women generally) were seen as the primary parent legally and, on balance, deemed to be the most naturally fitted to parent. Criminal and civil action towards my Father (and other abusive men) remained largely impotent for another decade or two.
By the 1970’s, there seemed to be the start of better protection against physical abuse towards women and children, as the women’s liberation movement had an increasing impact. There were some overreactions, injustices and new prejudices that resulted, but these are always a risk, even in an unavoidable revolution. Many men in the UK started to be more responsive to parenting roles.
Erin Pizzy had started her Women’s Refuge service, in spite of Erin and her Father being abused by her Mother. She realised, like all intelligent adult carers and caring parents, that if you love and look after your kids, they make better parents themselves. By protecting women she was protecting the children. She recently spoke about this, correcting the assumptions that had been made. She did not see herself as a feminist.
By the 1980’s the whole philosophy in child rearing was beginning to be taken over by professional experts a Family Courts. These were a response to better recognition of child needs, but were organised to protect institutions from increasing criticisms.
Those professionals I engaged with as a child and as a new (but very enlightened) social worker were still oblivious to the real range and extent of the abuses, including sexual molestation, full on sexual abuse and their own institutional abuses and neglects.
Just as important (and abusive) there was significant social pressure on some parents and professionals to have ‘lowered’ expectations for some children and elitist pressures to have overly ‘high’ expectation on children. Much of this was generated by poorly informed and prescriptive professional experts, with disproportionate power to the level of competence and insight into their own specialist expertise.
I have grown up with and worked with kids in kids homes, on the streets, in community groups and as adults, suffering the invariable consequences of child abuses of all kinds. The experts, in their specialist isolation, often rejected my childhood and then my professional assertions, that abuses of all kinds were widespread. Experts in adults fail to appreciate the childhood causes of problems.
Professionals went on to see abuse in every child comment and behaviour, ignoring what most of us who experienced these abuses. We were too emotionally involved to be ‘detached’ professionals. The approach to childhood problems became very clinical and legalistic. The child’s interests being lost in the academic argument of children’s interests. Health & Social Care professions became ‘empirical’ & detached.
This meant that they had to see repeated patterns of injury and behaviour consistent with their prescribed (theory) of what child abuse is. No thinking outside the box was encouraged. The medical & legal models that had been so wonderful in identifying and solving so many physical conditions and environmental problems are just not adequate for considering the whole person and complex family & social groups, which they remained a biased part of, however clinical.
That has not yet changed. The concept of Child and Family Courts and Child and Family services was intended to ensure and integrated approach to supporting whole families under pressure. These have failed and have focused upon the child’s exclusive rights (without considering developing responsibilities) and have mostly failed to help families work together, more often aiding pushing them apart.
Of course, representative of professional institutions will say that this is done in the ‘best interests’ of the child and ‘Child Protection’. The same is the case for adults, who are suffering the undiscovered consequence of childhood abuse and neglect of many kinds (some not fully appreciated of acknowledged).
There is regular miss-use of the term to mask the fact that professional institutions (including courts) are actually ‘protecting themselves’ and operating in ‘their own best interests’.
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