Why? Because They Can #winterbourne
This blog was sent in for publication by 'an anonymous parent'. To help people try and understand from the perspective of the person with learning disabilities as well as the parent I've reproduced 'Imagine You're Four' below the guest blog.
Cover up
Epidemic
Why?
Because they can
Wide spread shock and anger what happened at Winterbourne.
Viewers shocked by Michael and Jean’s story line in Eastenders how people can manipulate others.
And yet it is happening all over the country every day.
Everyday parents are speaking up as to what is happening and yet no one believes them because of the outdated attitude of what it’s like to be a parent of person with a disability. Over protective. Over emotional. Mad. Depressed. Stressed. Demented. So you’re not credible. You don’t know what you are talking about. It wasn’t like that. Your child dosn’t speak – so how do you know! Your child has a disability so what they are saying can’t be true.
Out of date stigma and stereotyping.
Staff who believe in dignity and value don’t speak up for fear of their jobs. And so the cover up continues. Other staff have been institutionalised. Or just don’t believe in equality. Or believe they are doing a brilliant job and they are the experts. They don’t call in outside intervention when it is needed. They lie.
Chemical cosh.
Babysitting.
Cuts.
Recession excuses.
The CQC go in and inspect but as staff are in league with each other to keep their jobs it is an easy white wash. It’s a tick box exercise. The CQC need to wise up.
A huge change in culture and training is needed to up skill. Raise expectations. The right attitude dosn’t cost anything.
Respect.
The way forward. Collaboration and partnership working between people with disabilities, their families, advocates, providers and commissioners.
Sent in by An anonymous parent.
Imagine you're four.
You love your parents, your friends, the way the light comes through
your curtains early in the morning, twinkling on the walls while you
wait in your princess room patiently for mummy and daddy's
wake up time. Your favourite things are pink ballons and fairies, when
it's all a bit confusing around you you know you're safe as long as you
can catch sight of those pink flashes and know mum and dad are close.
You love to give cuddles, hugs so tight there's no room to wiggle and
when you get excited you rock back and forth from foot to foot, arms
spiralling joyfully.
One day a new clipboard lady comes to see your mum and dad. You see them cry and decide you don't like this clipboard lady, you wonder where the clipboard lady you remember has gone. Mummy and Daddy are sad so you hug them then fling yourself to the floor and scream so the clipboard lady will go away. It works so next time you decide to scream louder and kick your feet harder to be sure she'll go before your mum and dad cry.
Next time the clipboard lady comes with lots of other people to take you away. Lots of big words you don't understand like 'aggressive' 'confrontational' and 'care order' float around the room and you can't see your pink balloons so scream and scream. Mummy and Daddy cry and tell you to be a good girl, that you'll love your new home, it'll be full of your favourite things to do, they'll come to see you soon.
When you get there it's all scary and wrong. It smells funny and the light doesn't wake you up in the mornings anymore. No-one knows you like to be woken up by the light and they wouldn't care if they did. The days are long, no painting or ponies like you're used to to fill the time and no-one comes to give you cuddles when you're sad. You cry alot and have tantrums. You're used to pink balloons and fairies when you have a tantrum, but without being able to see that you just kick more wildly, especially when the carers come to sit on you and hit you.
You might be only four but you can remember the important things Mummy and Daddy spent 18 years teaching you. You know how to hold out your hand and say 'NO!' in a loud voice if someone tries to touch you, to say the police will come to look after you, to call out for your Mummy so she knows to come to you. Mummy and Daddy were so proud of you for being their big girl and learning these skills, you try to remember that as you lie on the floor of your shower, surrounded by grown ups shouting at you, throwing cold water all over you, sitting on you and choking you. You cry and cry for your Mum but it just makes the carers hit you more. Sometimes the nurses come along and you look at them while you're on the floor, pinned beneath a chair, but then someone puts a blanket over your head so you can't look at them anymore. The blanket's brown and scratchy and you cry for your pink balloons while they hit you some more.
You don't get days out anymore. There used to be a car and Mummy and Daddy took you places with swings and slides. Swings, slides, light through the leaves and being happy slip further and further away until you're not sure there was ever a world beyond beige walls with no pink to hide in to bear the slaps, pinches and pushdowns that are your new routine. You're sure you remember your parents though and cry for them every day. You don't know the reason they can't come to visit is that now you're a hospital resident 80 miles away from home and the car had to go because you're no longer entitled to the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance and the Motability scheme. Mummy and Daddy are getting older and they had to care for you instead of going out to work. You don't know they're going cold and hungry now they're unemployed not carers, you only know that no-one comes to see you except the people who hurt you.
You don't know someone in the hospital did care. That they reported the abuse you are experiencing repeatedly. To their manager, to their manager's manager, to the Care Quality Commission. You don't know because no-one did anything, nothing ever changes now, the torture is your daily routine. You don't know the word for torture, but you could give a better account of what it means than a prisoner in Guantanamo.
You don't know that in the world outside your torture chamber that people talk alot about double funding, scroungers and fraud. Of something called a deficit, the need to cut costs and protect the vulnerable. You don't know that because all the talk is of stamping out fraud and you're so vulnerable no-one knows you exist.
One day a new clipboard lady comes to see your mum and dad. You see them cry and decide you don't like this clipboard lady, you wonder where the clipboard lady you remember has gone. Mummy and Daddy are sad so you hug them then fling yourself to the floor and scream so the clipboard lady will go away. It works so next time you decide to scream louder and kick your feet harder to be sure she'll go before your mum and dad cry.
Next time the clipboard lady comes with lots of other people to take you away. Lots of big words you don't understand like 'aggressive' 'confrontational' and 'care order' float around the room and you can't see your pink balloons so scream and scream. Mummy and Daddy cry and tell you to be a good girl, that you'll love your new home, it'll be full of your favourite things to do, they'll come to see you soon.
When you get there it's all scary and wrong. It smells funny and the light doesn't wake you up in the mornings anymore. No-one knows you like to be woken up by the light and they wouldn't care if they did. The days are long, no painting or ponies like you're used to to fill the time and no-one comes to give you cuddles when you're sad. You cry alot and have tantrums. You're used to pink balloons and fairies when you have a tantrum, but without being able to see that you just kick more wildly, especially when the carers come to sit on you and hit you.
You might be only four but you can remember the important things Mummy and Daddy spent 18 years teaching you. You know how to hold out your hand and say 'NO!' in a loud voice if someone tries to touch you, to say the police will come to look after you, to call out for your Mummy so she knows to come to you. Mummy and Daddy were so proud of you for being their big girl and learning these skills, you try to remember that as you lie on the floor of your shower, surrounded by grown ups shouting at you, throwing cold water all over you, sitting on you and choking you. You cry and cry for your Mum but it just makes the carers hit you more. Sometimes the nurses come along and you look at them while you're on the floor, pinned beneath a chair, but then someone puts a blanket over your head so you can't look at them anymore. The blanket's brown and scratchy and you cry for your pink balloons while they hit you some more.
You don't get days out anymore. There used to be a car and Mummy and Daddy took you places with swings and slides. Swings, slides, light through the leaves and being happy slip further and further away until you're not sure there was ever a world beyond beige walls with no pink to hide in to bear the slaps, pinches and pushdowns that are your new routine. You're sure you remember your parents though and cry for them every day. You don't know the reason they can't come to visit is that now you're a hospital resident 80 miles away from home and the car had to go because you're no longer entitled to the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance and the Motability scheme. Mummy and Daddy are getting older and they had to care for you instead of going out to work. You don't know they're going cold and hungry now they're unemployed not carers, you only know that no-one comes to see you except the people who hurt you.
You don't know someone in the hospital did care. That they reported the abuse you are experiencing repeatedly. To their manager, to their manager's manager, to the Care Quality Commission. You don't know because no-one did anything, nothing ever changes now, the torture is your daily routine. You don't know the word for torture, but you could give a better account of what it means than a prisoner in Guantanamo.
You don't know that in the world outside your torture chamber that people talk alot about double funding, scroungers and fraud. Of something called a deficit, the need to cut costs and protect the vulnerable. You don't know that because all the talk is of stamping out fraud and you're so vulnerable no-one knows you exist.
6 comments:
Incredibly powerful and moving. Thought provoking. I hope someone who can influence important decisions sees this and feels the same way.
So frightened reading this. Choked up and angry.And still it goes on, day in, day out.Evil evil people out there.A conspiracy.
This is so sad....
Professional 'Objectivity' sinfully disguises indifference and thus the journey to the banality of Evil begins...
Adrian Wait.
Arguably the biggest fraud is the suggestion that the deficit, any deficit, is a problem. Money is simply stuff you make up, and it's the government's job to make it up and inject it into the economy to see it's there in enough supply to keep its citizens safe and well. Osbsorne and Balls, in their continuing efforts to suggest otherwise, are revealed as nasty little scammers. There's two things to be done to fight them. One, burn the City of London to the ground. Two, create local currencies and encourage trade in them, as areas as diverse as Brixon and Bristol have done. That way we remove ourselves from the malign sphere of influence of government.
I wonder which label causes more pain? Unemployed or Carer? And who will speak for those who can't speak for themselves?
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