Disability

[feral chile]

I thought I'd start a new thread, as disability is something I care about. Anything disability related, really.

To start us off -

The correct way to describe disability relating to mental health: I admit to transgressing some of these, and I'm supposed to be disability aware:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/17/mental-illness-vocabulary_n_7078984.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

particularly describing people as 'suffering from' or 'sufferers of'

[russycarps]

mental illness is stigmatised no matter what words we choose to use to describe it.

as an unrelated but similar aside, my friend had cancer (and thankfully recovered) and what drove him up the wall most was being called "brave". It would irritate me too.

[feral chile]

mental illness is stigmatised no matter what words we choose to use to describe it.

as an unrelated but similar aside, my friend had cancer (and thankfully recovered) and what drove him up the wall most was being called "brave". It would irritate me too.

I had a relative who was terminally ill with cancer. and when we went up to visit her she got a bit weepy, so I gave her a hug.

She phoned me afterwards to thank me, because it was the first time anyone had touched her since her diagnosis.

That still chokes me up when I think of it. Maybe it's some kind of primal instinct, to avoid members of the group who are sick.

Edited April 20, 2015 by feral chile

[Rufus Gwertigan]

mental illness is stigmatised no matter what words we choose to use to describe it.

as an unrelated but similar aside, my friend had cancer (and thankfully recovered) and what drove him up the wall most was being called "brave". It would irritate me too.

When I was doing my counselling training one of my mentors was a Macmillan nurse. She was a very brusk and foreright woman to say the least and she brought up the issue of "bravery" in a seminar. I replied I hated the term "brave fight" as to me it suggests that there is a "cowardly fight" or some other option when really at the end of the day you don't want to die. Others ripped the hell out of me except the mentor. She said she says to patients "sorry you are dying, really, but that's the way it is so lets get on with the rest of your life shall we?" (That is paraphrasing a deep and meaningful half hour discussion btw).

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I thought I'd start a new thread, as disability is something I care about. Anything disability related, really.

To start us off -

The correct way to describe disability relating to mental health: I admit to transgressing some of these, and I'm supposed to be disability aware:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/17/mental-illness-vocabulary_n_7078984.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

particularly describing people as 'suffering from' or 'sufferers of'

I think I have mentioned it before but I feel disability is purely a social construct and we are in a situation that we have made of our own when looking at the "disabled". If we put in context that care for the "disabled" is a relatively new phenomonononom (sp?) i.e. in the Industrial Age and that in the past many would still have been expected to make their own living or assisted with the family. While the language of the day using words like cripple or imbecile are derogatory now the person involved would have usually still have treated "relatively" normally as everyone else e.g. scraping in the mud for the best bits like all the peasants.

The real issue is not the terminology but the thought behind it. From your link am I using "Special Education Student" to isolate or is it as a very sloppy descriptive. My argument is why mention it in the first place?

[feral chile]

I think I have mentioned it before but I feel disability is purely a social construct and we are in a situation that we have made of our own when looking at the "disabled". If we put in context that care for the "disabled" is a relatively new phenomonononom (sp?) i.e. in the Industrial Age and that in the past many would still have been expected to make their own living or assisted with the family. While the language of the day using words like cripple or imbecile are derogatory now the person involved would have usually still have treated "relatively" normally as everyone else e.g. scraping in the mud for the best bits like all the peasants.

The real issue is not the terminology but the thought behind it. From your link am I using "Special Education Student" to isolate or is it as a very sloppy descriptive. My argument is why mention it in the first place?

I understand what you mean. I think the article is trying to agree with you - when I worked for a charity, they used terms such as 'service user' and 'in mental distress' rather than a mental health label.

I'm not keen on labels, I can understand that we have to have some kind of way to identify what people need in order to provide it.

I'm of the opinion, though, that often means decent housing and standard of living as much as a mental health diagnosis.

Treating someone for depression because they live in a damp house they can't afford to heat, for example (as happened to me at one time) kind of misses the point, in my opinion.

Edited April 20, 2015 by feral chile

[zero000]

I think I have mentioned it before but I feel disability is purely a social construct and we are in a situation that we have made of our own when looking at the "disabled". If we put in context that care for the "disabled" is a relatively new phenomonononom (sp?) i.e. in the Industrial Age and that in the past many would still have been expected to make their own living or assisted with the family. While the language of the day using words like cripple or imbecile are derogatory now the person involved would have usually still have treated "relatively" normally as everyone else e.g. scraping in the mud for the best bits like all the peasants.

The real issue is not the terminology but the thought behind it. From your link am I using "Special Education Student" to isolate or is it as a very sloppy descriptive. My argument is why mention it in the first place?

That's a really important point to make Rufus. We often concentrate on what people can't do rather than what they can.

Give this a listen: http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-become-batman?showDate=2015-01-23

It's mainly featured around how our expectations affect other people and it's centered around a blind man who has taught himself to see using echolocation.

He now teaches echolocation to blind children and in the podcast he talks a bit about the battles he faces when working with parents who (understandably) won't let their child take risks, which will eventually benefit them in the long term.

Here's a video of the man in question too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxEmD0gu0Q

[feral chile]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/30/katie-hopkins-life-harder-disabled-people?CMP=fb_gu

[grumpyhack]

I go with the social model of disability, once explained so well to me by a friend who has to use a wheelchair because he suffers from a brittle bone condition.

He explained that he is not in himself disabled. He is disabled by society.

He lives in Penarth, a small town just outside Cardiff and, describing the difficulty he has getting around, he said: "I am disabled in Penarth but less so than in Cardiff. I'm really disabled when I go to Newport."

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Some interesting bedtime reading here;

http://www.csrs.ac.uk/Publications/BAMdisabled.pdf

[feral chile]

[

I go with the social model of disability, once explained so well to me by a friend who has to use a wheelchair because he suffers from a brittle bone condition.

He explained that he is not in himself disabled. He is disabled by society.

He lives in Penarth, a small town just outside Cardiff and, describing the difficulty he has getting around, he said: "I am disabled in Penarth but less so than in Cardiff. I'm really disabled when I go to Newport."

Yes, that's what I think too. You could have a work situation whereby someone has a health condition that makes it difficult to stick to set working times, and flexible working would enable them to work full time. So in the first condition they're disabled, and possibly vulnerable (to attendance discipline etc.) and in the second one they're not.

Some interesting bedtime reading here;

http://www.csrs.ac.uk/Publications/BAMdisabled.pdf

I've had a quick skim through this, and it backs up the training I've had (reassuringly). It basically boils down to trying not to make assumptions, not even well meaning ones, because if you assume vulnerability or prescribing what help a person needs, you're being discriminatory and disabling that person.

Instead, you ask people how you can help.

Edited May 2, 2015 by feral chile

[feral chile]

Benefits Sanctions

http://www.24dash.com/news/central_government/2015-05-18-DWP-reveals-sanctions-link-to-one-in-five-benefit-claimant-deaths

I get so angry about this.

What can we do about it?

[gary1979666]

Benefits Sanctions

http://www.24dash.com/news/central_government/2015-05-18-DWP-reveals-sanctions-link-to-one-in-five-benefit-claimant-deaths

I get so angry about this.

What can we do about it?

I know I'm one of the token Tories on here and have an inherent bias to the govt over the other parties, so please read my post with a bit of balance.

Before I start, any deaths for whatever reason are bad. People living with not enough money, etc isn't great esp if it leads to suicide.

But that article is terrible. There's very little fact in there (and I know there wasn't a disclosure from the DWP), but it justs from assumption to assumption and you end up with a headline that suggests that sanctions are responsible for 20% of all benefit deaths. When all that is known is that 10 / 49 people who committed suicide on benefits were on sanctions at some point in their lives. This is a pretty big assumption when nothing else is known about these people - were they depressed anyway? Has another life event happened? What was the sanction for? Was it even recently?

I'm all for a little extrapolation, but for a small sample and a large amount of guess work, more digging is needed.

[kaosmark2]

Do you think benefit sanctions - which actually cost more to implement than the benefits they save - are in any way a good thing?

[gary1979666]

Do you think benefit sanctions - which actually cost more to implement than the benefits they save - are in any way a good thing?

Ill be honest, I don't know enough about the rules around them to fully comment. But I don't think that JSA should be paid if people are not making sufficient effort to find work (I know, subjective term, but I'm talking principles rather than detail). So if there are courses they can learn from but don't attend or they miss interviews, ... then don't think there should be a hand out for nothing. Esp for repeat 'offenders', if you pardon the term.

To pay regardless of effort doesn't really encourage people back to work . its meant to be a stop gap, isn't it?

I was in France earlier in the week as my company is closing an office there, I asked how there job hunt was going- they didn't care about a new job as the govt pays them 75% of their salary for a year. No incentive to look.

[kaosmark2]

Ill be honest, I don't know enough about the rules around them to fully comment. But I don't think that JSA should be paid if people are not making sufficient effort to find work (I know, subjective term, but I'm talking principles rather than detail). So if there are courses they can learn from but don't attend or they miss interviews, ... then don't think there should be a hand out for nothing. Esp for repeat 'offenders', if you pardon the term.

To pay regardless of effort doesn't really encourage people back to work . its meant to be a stop gap, isn't it?

I was in France earlier in the week as my company is closing an office there, I asked how there job hunt was going- they didn't care about a new job as the govt pays them 75% of their salary for a year. No incentive to look.

But this is just media rhetoric. These "offences" are things like people being late to JSA meetings due to actually being at job interviews. The number of people who actively don't want a job are a really small proportion of JSA claimants.

Unemployment is around 2%, underemployment is pretty high. There isn't a job out there for everyone who wants one, so why punish people who can't get one?

[feral chile]

A lot of people who get sanctioned are disabled people, people who have learning difficulties, people with mental health conditions etc.

Do we want to be a country that deprives those who are already deprived of so much in their life?

[feral chile]

http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/minister-dont-warn-social-workers-vulnerable-claimants-sanctioned/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/david-clapson-benefit-sanctions-death-government-policies

It doesn’t matter that sanctions are disproportionately hitting the most vulnerable. Nor that the DWP’s own commissioned report says that they are being imposed in such a way that vulnerable people often don’t understand what is happening to them, and are left uninformed of the hardship payments to which they are entitled. Six out of 10 employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants who have had their benefits stopped have a mental-health condition or learning difficulty. Are these the chosen victims of austerity now? By definition of being in receipt of ESA, many will struggle to do things such as be punctual for meetings or complete work placements with strangers in environments they don’t know. It is setting people up to fail and then punishing them for it.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/22/benefit-sanctions-vulnerable-people-hardship-dwp-report

Edited May 22, 2015 by feral chile

[gary1979666]

But this is just media rhetoric. These "offences" are things like people being late to JSA meetings due to actually being at job interviews. The number of people who actively don't want a job are a really small proportion of JSA claimants.

Unemployment is around 2%, underemployment is pretty high. There isn't a job out there for everyone who wants one, so why punish people who can't get one?

Agree with the pedantic offences, the system needs to be sufficiently flexible. But cant give freeloaders a free ride either. Its a balance, cant be completely tilted in one direction or t'other.

There are a lot of jobs out there, I work for a ftse100 and we struggle at times. Other companies and agencies I've worked with have said the same. They get token CV which look like people ticking boxes for JSA. A bit of effort and there are jobs for the taking. We end up employing immigrants who end up doing a better job....obviously good on them, and anyone who claims that they come over here and take our jobs is talking rot; the Brits are giving them the jobs.

[feral chile]

Agree with the pedantic offences, the system needs to be sufficiently flexible. But cant give freeloaders a free ride either. Its a balance, cant be completely tilted in one direction or t'other.

There are a lot of jobs out there, I work for a ftse100 and we struggle at times. Other companies and agencies I've worked with have said the same. They get token CV which look like people ticking boxes for JSA. A bit of effort and there are jobs for the taking. We end up employing immigrants who end up doing a better job....obviously good on them, and anyone who claims that they come over here and take our jobs is talking rot; the Brits are giving them the jobs.

Neither freeloaders nor anyone else deserve a death penalty for claiming benefit.

[gary1979666]

Neither freeloaders nor anyone else deserve a death penalty for claiming benefit.

Did I say that? Hell ,your article didn't even say that.

JSA is an important bit of the benefit system, no complaints from me. However the important bit is the J, if you're not looking for a job, then really why should the state fund you? If they have depression or other disabilities, then it needs to get picked up through the healthcare system (yeah, I know).

[feral chile]

Did I say that? Hell ,your article didn't even say that.

JSA is an important bit of the benefit system, no complaints from me. However the important bit is the J, if you're not looking for a job, then really why should the state fund you? If they have depression or other disabilities, then it needs to get picked up through the healthcare system (yeah, I know).

Because it's extremely difficult to claim any disability benefit, so people are technically receiving JSA when they're not fit for work.

You have to prove you're not able to walk etc,. and the way the questions are worded, most people will interpret that as physically able, not mentally able. Even those who experience invisible disability are socialised to feel they're able bodied and therefore not entitled.

I went along with a friend to a PIP meeting, and I know from experience how incapacitated she is, but when you get a question like 'can you walk x distance, can you wash and feed yourself' etc., even though she gets completely incoherent and incapable of thought, never mind action, she said yes, because both arms and legs theoretically work.

I did explain that without me there, she wouldn't have been able to attend the meeting because f her condition, and tried to explain, but they had to go by her answers, and she was refused financial help and forced to look for work.

A family member had an embarrassing health condition that was physical, and was scared to admit she couldn't cope, for fear of social services becoming involved. You might say that's her wn fault, but we should as a society be making sure that we offer help in a way that people feel able to accept it. If the system's failing them, it needs to be changed. Ask people what the barriers are. But hey, do we really want the public cost of people actually knowing how to claim these benefits? The attitude is that they don't want people to know, because it's treated like a competition you have to score highly enough in.

When some people are experiencing a bout of their condition, sometimes they're not able to do anything, let alone attend a JSA interview. Yet the Job Centre will only get to see them when they're n a better state of health, so will never be able to assess them properly.

I'm convinced in my own mind that sanctions have directly led to deaths. People are extremely biased against disordered individuals, in particular, even sometimes in organisations that deal with vulnerable people, because their condition can make interaction difficult.

But they are extremely vulnerable people in crisis.

Edited May 23, 2015 by feral chile

[atomised]

From my experience attending an esa medical with a visually impaired friend as their carer it became clear very quickly the assessor was concentrating on minor back pain rather than the condition she was there for. Sure enough the report came back saying she was fit for work with not a single mention of the sight loss and the need to go everywhere with a carer. The esa was eventually given after an appeal that took over a year to be heard with the consequent financial difficulties that caused

[Spindles]

Fantastic post Feral, articulated brilliantly.

[viberunner]

There are a lot of jobs out there, I work for a ftse100 and we struggle at times.

Jobs are not equally distributed in the UK neither is labour supply.

Low-end labour (you don't say where you are located and what you pay) will be increasingly difficult to locate in London as it is ever more gentrified.

But how can immigrants manage to live in London and still do those jobs?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17183171

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/may/09/london-landlords-desperate-tenants

Edited May 23, 2015 by viberunner