Each day we meet challanges, a big one we face is:

The changing needs of our Clients:  How can we help them to have these changes met?

·        Identify change or what needs to change.

·        Discuss the change with the person with the disability for their perspective.

·        Identify the rate of change.

·        Have professional assessments made and documented.

·        Explore the implications of the change and plan for it.

·        Gather data on the available resources that are needed to support the change, think creatively.

·        Identify procedures and activities that the changes will impact and prepare new procedures for each activity, change the activity to incorporate changes, to minimise disruption to the person’s life.

·        Obtain/ write competency standards and or programs and have them checked by management/support coordinators/WHSO.

·        Evaluate support levels and choose support that works with the change.

·        Identify and evaluate the successes and failures of the plan and adjust accordingly.

·        Revisit the issue with the person with the disability and obtain their feedback.

·        Continue on with meeting change

One thing in life that always stays the same:  Change.

Santa

There seems to be mixed opinions within the organisation surrounding the issues of clients who engage in “child like play” and interact with “childlike toys”. Some feel this type of interaction should be discouraged and then there are those that feel it should be left up to the clients discretion.

Unfortunately we live in a society that often openly prosecutes or looks down upon those that are different to the majority. Clients who partake in interaction with childlike toys in public are unconsciously presenting negative connotations of themselves and of people who have intellectual disabilities in general. A roadblock we could simply do without in the journey of client advocacy. But in the privacy of their own home environment, where does one draw the line?

One of the greatest challenges we face in community integration is exposing clients to people’s opinions. Opinions that are based upon the social and cultural knowledge's and influences that they have accumulated over a lifetime and that many of our clients until recently have never had privy to.

Many clients have been raised from infancy in institutions. Others spent their childhood in the family environment and then, for various reasons were placed in institutions. They were exposed to the social “norms” of being a little boy or girl but were never given an appropriate role model of how to be a woman or man. Many also lacked exposure to the social activities (clubs, sports etc) educational/cultural institutions (churches, schools etc) and an abundance of positive interaction with their peers.

Elements which you and I often take for granted yet played an essential role in guiding us into conducting our lives, as  and becoming, socially acceptable women and men.
So which opinion is right? Neither, because they are just that—opinions. I do however question the terms “childlike toys” and “childlike behaviours”. As a boy, my husband played endless games of cars with his brothers. He and his brothers still play with cars, only today they are much bigger and much much more expensive.

And it is not longer considered “play” but a socially acceptable “hobby”, despite the fact that he gains the same sense of enjoyment that he did twenty odd years ago. My three year old son, with his complete lack of social etiquette and crystal clear insight once asked upon seeing some of my husbands fellow car enthusiasts arrive—”mummy, have those big kids come to play with daddy’s car?”.

JORDAN WILSON
Jordan is support worker at Kythira ST, she is the mother of two children and has a BA in Humanities and is currently studying nursing.