‘Support, empower and enable people with disabilities to live their lives to the full’

Our mission statement talks about the people we support living a ‘full life’. What do we think is a full life? We put the question to 180 Options staff gathered at the Options annual Event. Each team wrote a list of the things that fulfilled their lives, these were gathered together into a big list.

What we found was that a large percentage of the answers involved a relationship or interaction with another person. Such as:

Friendships, Family, Sex Life, Holidays, Education, Football, Laughter, Love, Travel, Having a Beer, Meeting new people, Politics, Marriage, Religion, Being Part of a Team, Clubs, Being admired, Social Events, Trust, Intimacy, Opportunities to experience grief/loss, Compassion, Lifelong Friendships, Birthdays, Celebrations, Facebook, Belonging, Cinema with friends, Children, Dancing, Appreciation, Holidays, Communication, Grandchildren, Blind Dates, To be loved, Christmas, Watching your family grow, Job satisfaction, Jokes, Eating Out, Empathy.

(What makes a full life discussion at the Options Event. To See the full List Click Here.)

We agreed that a big part of having a great life is the relationships we have with the people in our lives. We believe people with disabilities are no different than you or I in their aspirations for a ‘full life’. But unfortunately in general people with learning disabilities have less friends that most people. Many things can contribute to this some of the things we have encountered are:

• This can be because of a lack of opportunities when growing up, people getting separated when they leave schools or day centres and not being able to keep in touch.
• Some people who receive support not having the chance to learn social skills, etiquette and relationship subtleties, naturally.
• Support staff can sometimes be a barrier to people making connections within their community; they can be viewed as friends rather than enablers. Nearly all supporters who view themselves as friends don’t keep in touch when they move on.
• People with learning disabilities are still often viewed of receivers of care and peoples support. The impression that they are not able to contribute as key players to their peers or neighbourhoods still prevails in most places.
• People’s support may miss golden opportunities for people to develop meaningful relationships. Their social time may become very structured around routine events, staffing schedules or they may have to fit in with the activities of a larger group.
• Supporting people to build relationships is not a primary focus of many support providers.
• Some people with learning disabilities may have low expectations for opportunities because of the lack of previous experiences.
• Fear of the unfamiliar and unknown on the part of people with disabilities and others.
• Some people can have low expectations of people with disabilities.

As an organisation we felt that we were not fulfilling our mission statement about people having ‘full lives’, if we didn’t attempt to tackle the above obstacles head on.

To see how we have attempted this see ‘Inclusion in Practice’