We discussed Morals here recently, Zoot raised the subject if memory serves. I thought this issue deserved a hearing.
There are certain individuals whom through no fault of their own don't fit into the model of society the rest of us live by, I'm not talking about criminals or the insane but a class of people who are social misfits scarcely capable of caring for themselves but not ill in the sense of requiring hospitalization.
In the UK, we deal with this individuals by placing the 'in the community'. We have a programme run by the individual health trusts called 'Care in the Community', it is supposed to be a way of accommodating these misfits in a community environment.
Local to my home, one of these 'institutions' masquerading as a 'home' was closed recently. It was one of four purpose built units each housing ten 'clients' - as they are called in deference to naming them 'patients' or 'inmates' or even 'prisoners'. The unit was closed because standards had dropped below an acceptable level as judged by a committee established to independently vet the living conditions of the clients, they received a six month warning, the situation didn't improve and the clients, many of whom had lived together for a period of years - ten years in some cases - were seperated and sent to other homes across the UK.
These clients suffer a range of disabilities, most are mentally handicapped but able to provide some care for themselves under supervision. Some don't understand socially accepted norms of behaviour and behave oddly, though only in relation to the 'wider community', they don't see themselves as behaving oddly.
My daughter works for the local mental health trust and is charged with improving the living experience of clients, service users and carers. She was asked to visit the three remaining units and produce a report on how the living experince might be improved in the homes. Bearing in mind these homes are not mental institutions by the common definition of the term and she has worked with clients in many of that type of institution, she was absolutely shocked by what she found - so shocked that it took her the best part of a week to tell us about her visit.
In the first home, she was greated by a man at the gate who was waiting for a bus. The gate was locked to prevent him getting out. The supervisor told her he stands there all day every day waiting for the bus. The bus comes about once a month to take them to the local town to walk round the shops. The supervisor, understandably nervous about having another 'outsider' vist them for the purpose of producing a report, took her to one side before entering the house to apologise for one of the clients who had a habit of removing his clothes.
She assumed this to be something that happened occassionally, she didn't expect to find him stark naked inside the house. He followed my daughter and the supervisor from room to room, occassionally playing with himself and laughing. She was shown this clients room. She described it like a Monks cell, stripped bare like the man himself, not even a sheet or blankets on his mattress and the room contained nothing that might personalise it in anyway. Not one picture, or book or photograph or ornament of any kind. The man had lived there for ten years. The three staff in this unit were sat watching the television, the clients sat in chairs, some watching television, some looking a tattered and torn magazines.
None of them had any personal possessions, they were not in fact living a life at all. They were marginalised, institutionalised in everything except name, a detrious of a society that prefered them to be out of sight and out of mind.
The other two homes were scarcely any better, the staff in all three clearly demoralised, untrained, unsupervised... and this is what we call care in the community.
Despite all of this, there is a community between clients. These individuals rarely have family visitors, the other residents and the carers are their 'family', they share their life together.
My daughters is terribly torn over what to do. The first home was closed because they couldn't keep one of the clients dressed, quite how this naked man was overlooked in another of the homes is something of a mystery. She questioned the supervisor about the naked man, and it appears that no attempt has been made to get him to wear clothes, she formed the impression it was easier for the staff to leave him naked than to encourage him to dress. One of the mandates being introduced is 'free access' for clients, in other words, doors and gates are to be left unlocked. It's the wisdom of the 'Masters', who've no idea what goes on, to decree that labelling something as 'Care in the Community' means as much to clients as it does to the politicians.
What happens to the man waiting for the bus? And the naked man when he wanders into the street. She feels duty bound to report what she has seen knowing all hell will break loose on the homes and the family of clients will be seperated into different homes across the country losing what little dignity they have been able to build in the fragile relationships they have constructed between themselves.
She spent the week reading up on the policy background to these homes discovering a clear intention to make the case that the service should be handed over to private contractors to run on behlf of the health trust. In other words if you paint the situation as beyond redemption, you can wash your hands of the problem. Push the marginalised into a darker corner where no light will ever shine.
There are certain individuals whom through no fault of their own don't fit into the model of society the rest of us live by, I'm not talking about criminals or the insane but a class of people who are social misfits scarcely capable of caring for themselves but not ill in the sense of requiring hospitalization.
In the UK, we deal with this individuals by placing the 'in the community'. We have a programme run by the individual health trusts called 'Care in the Community', it is supposed to be a way of accommodating these misfits in a community environment.
Local to my home, one of these 'institutions' masquerading as a 'home' was closed recently. It was one of four purpose built units each housing ten 'clients' - as they are called in deference to naming them 'patients' or 'inmates' or even 'prisoners'. The unit was closed because standards had dropped below an acceptable level as judged by a committee established to independently vet the living conditions of the clients, they received a six month warning, the situation didn't improve and the clients, many of whom had lived together for a period of years - ten years in some cases - were seperated and sent to other homes across the UK.
These clients suffer a range of disabilities, most are mentally handicapped but able to provide some care for themselves under supervision. Some don't understand socially accepted norms of behaviour and behave oddly, though only in relation to the 'wider community', they don't see themselves as behaving oddly.
My daughter works for the local mental health trust and is charged with improving the living experience of clients, service users and carers. She was asked to visit the three remaining units and produce a report on how the living experince might be improved in the homes. Bearing in mind these homes are not mental institutions by the common definition of the term and she has worked with clients in many of that type of institution, she was absolutely shocked by what she found - so shocked that it took her the best part of a week to tell us about her visit.
In the first home, she was greated by a man at the gate who was waiting for a bus. The gate was locked to prevent him getting out. The supervisor told her he stands there all day every day waiting for the bus. The bus comes about once a month to take them to the local town to walk round the shops. The supervisor, understandably nervous about having another 'outsider' vist them for the purpose of producing a report, took her to one side before entering the house to apologise for one of the clients who had a habit of removing his clothes.
She assumed this to be something that happened occassionally, she didn't expect to find him stark naked inside the house. He followed my daughter and the supervisor from room to room, occassionally playing with himself and laughing. She was shown this clients room. She described it like a Monks cell, stripped bare like the man himself, not even a sheet or blankets on his mattress and the room contained nothing that might personalise it in anyway. Not one picture, or book or photograph or ornament of any kind. The man had lived there for ten years. The three staff in this unit were sat watching the television, the clients sat in chairs, some watching television, some looking a tattered and torn magazines.
None of them had any personal possessions, they were not in fact living a life at all. They were marginalised, institutionalised in everything except name, a detrious of a society that prefered them to be out of sight and out of mind.
The other two homes were scarcely any better, the staff in all three clearly demoralised, untrained, unsupervised... and this is what we call care in the community.
Despite all of this, there is a community between clients. These individuals rarely have family visitors, the other residents and the carers are their 'family', they share their life together.
My daughters is terribly torn over what to do. The first home was closed because they couldn't keep one of the clients dressed, quite how this naked man was overlooked in another of the homes is something of a mystery. She questioned the supervisor about the naked man, and it appears that no attempt has been made to get him to wear clothes, she formed the impression it was easier for the staff to leave him naked than to encourage him to dress. One of the mandates being introduced is 'free access' for clients, in other words, doors and gates are to be left unlocked. It's the wisdom of the 'Masters', who've no idea what goes on, to decree that labelling something as 'Care in the Community' means as much to clients as it does to the politicians.
What happens to the man waiting for the bus? And the naked man when he wanders into the street. She feels duty bound to report what she has seen knowing all hell will break loose on the homes and the family of clients will be seperated into different homes across the country losing what little dignity they have been able to build in the fragile relationships they have constructed between themselves.
She spent the week reading up on the policy background to these homes discovering a clear intention to make the case that the service should be handed over to private contractors to run on behlf of the health trust. In other words if you paint the situation as beyond redemption, you can wash your hands of the problem. Push the marginalised into a darker corner where no light will ever shine.
