Talk by Dr Simon Duffy of The Centre for Welfare Reform on 16th October for TQ21

Citizenship & Creative Support

What I hope to do is…• Show that the everyone can be a citizen

• Suggest some practical steps that service providers can take to support citizenship

• Help you see yourselves as innovators who are already making change happen

• Encourage you to challenge yourselves and society to go further

A mixture of• Philosophy

• Stories

• Innovations

• Data

• Poetry

• Pictures

What is the point of our work?

If we are not helping each other to be citizens what

are we doing?

What is citizenship?

Citizenship can sound very grand, but it’s a simple idea:

We’re all equal

We’re all different

& the best society is one where we all work together to respect and value everyone

Citizenship is also very practical

Everyone can be a citizen

Everyone can contribute

& the best support strengthens citizenship for all

1. Purpose• Citizen’s have a sense of

purpose - a meaningful life

• People’s sense of meaning has many sources

• We must listen and look for meaning in the right places

• We each have purpose - we just don’t always know it

2. Freedom• People have a right to be free

• But we need relationships with others to be free

• We need to provide help with information, communication and good representation

• A man in a desert is not free - he’s just alone

3. Money• People need the resources

necessary to be citizens

• The chance to earn and save

• Money for services is really the person’s entitlement

• People only do things for us for love or money - why not have both?

4. Home• People need a home of their

own

• That means living with the people we want to

• Safe, secure and private

• Going into a home - means losing your home

5. Help• Citizens need help - its not

independence that build community but dependence

• But help must be good help

• Supporters need to understand what good help demands

• If you need nobody you're no use to anybody

6. Life• Life is made by living

• Work, play, volunteering and having fun

• Life happens in community

• But it really matters that you are in the right community for you

7. Love• We all need love - life without

love is hell

• Love comes in many forms

• We need to understand how to nurture and encourage love

• Love is what creates citizenship and new citizens

How do we support citizenship

?

1. Get good at listening for direction

2. Build relationships that liberate people

3. Get clear about entitlements

4. Respect and deepen roots

5. Be flexible - in the extreme

6. Get stuck into community

7. Look out for love

Nan & Direction

This is not person centred planning

Help & Connect in Newcastle

Michael & Freedom

John-Paul & Money

Patrick & Home

Then the old Vainamoinen put this into words:!“Strange food goes down the wrong way!even in good lodging;!in his land a man's better at home loftier.!If only sweet God would grant!the kind creator allow!me to come to my own lands!the lands where I used to live!!Better in your own country!even water off your sole!than in a foreign country!honey from a golden bowl.”!!From the Finnish epic poem: The Kalevala

Trevor & Help

Individualise Everything

Choice Support & Southwark Council achieved over a 5 year

period a saving of 30% in the cost cutting up the block contract into

personal budgets and treating each person as an individual, using

technology and cutting central and salary costs.

Doreen & Life

The lame rides a horse!the maimed drives the herd!the deaf is brave in battle.!A man is better!blind than buried.!A dead man is deft at nothing.!!

A Viking Poem from the Havamal

Margaret & Love

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?!!

Igor Stravinsky

1. Get good at listening for direction

2. Build relationships that liberate

3. Get clear about entitlements

4. Respect and deepen roots

5. Be flexible - in the extreme

6. Get stuck into community

7. Look out for love

Some last thoughts…• Believe in yourselves - it’s the only way

• Explore, connect - there’s lots of free information and peer support available if you choose to use it

• Join Housing & Support Alliance and work with us on Flexible Support Project

• Join LDA England

If we really believe in citizenship & community…

how should we work together?

What is stopping us from doing our very best?

And what can we do about it?

To find out more

www.centreforwelfarereform.org

To join

www.learningdisabilityalliance.org