Chapter 8 continued

John Boular has worked in BDRC’s Information department for a number of years and is another great example of someone who has developed an extensive and specialist knowledge-base around disability issues, built on the initial foundation of personal experience when his own life was changed by disability.

Whilst every disabled person’s life is as unique as any other individual person in society, the sharp journey that John took from being physically able and fully employed to being disabled and without employment and the hurdles he had to get over to develop and achieve new aspirations, has parallels with the lives of many other disabled people. It, therefore, gives him valuable insight into the experience of those he now supports.

When John left school he went straight into a very physical job in the electro plating industry, working for his grandfather who was a hard task master in the age old tradition of Birmingham gaffers. He worked in factories for 15 years, when he began to suspect that there was something wrong in his spine.

After 18 months of pestering his doctor to no avail, he visited a private osteopath who confirmed that he had a serious long term condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, which prevented him from doing any physical work.

John was fortunate in having a supportive employer who initially did what they could to support him with things like equipment. But his luck was to change fairly quickly when the company relocated to China and, alongside most of his colleagues, John was made redundant.

“The very first time that I went into the Job Centre to sign on I had a bit of a dilemma because under the JSA you had to put down a job that you can actually do whereas I had only done one job for 15 years and I could no longer do that.

“I eventually saw a Disability Employment Advisor and one of the options was to go to Mansfield, Portland College, to train. I went there for about six months and I retrained in computers.

“On my return I was approached by Shaw Trust which helped me to find a voluntary position in a company called Total Computer and Network Support Limited in Aston. I was there for about two weeks when I ran into Maria McLeod in the pub. I got talking to her and she mentioned that the Disability Resource Centre was looking for somebody for a temporary position for three months for maternity cover. So I came, had an interview and got the job and have been here ever since.”

John worked on the Connect Project which was to support 60 disabled people (20 per year for three years) to use computers in their own homes. It was the first time he had worked from an office base and he enjoyed the new experience.

John does not describe the process of becoming a disabled person as being emotionally traumatic or even life changing in major ways, though he does recall going through a period of attempting to maintain his previous work patterns and lifestyle by “banging loads of painkillers down every day” in order to carry out the physical work of the factory. He observes that over time he resolved himself to an acceptance of the things which he could now do and the things he was now prevented from doing.

When Megan Davies took extended maternity leave prior to leaving the Connect Project altogether, it gave John the opportunity to see the project through to its conclusion and, with the support of BDRC Manager Steve Blick, he successfully joined the Employment and Training Department on a more permanent basis.

In 2004 John moved from the Employment team into Information and has worked there ever since. Here John emphasises the value of the Information service to the users of BDRC:

“The main areas of Information... I would have to say that benefits are at the top. If somebody acquires a disability, the first thing they want on their list is, moneywise, what are they going to live on? How much are they going to get in benefits? Second, I would probably say equipment – where can they get certain pieces of equipment, for instance, from Social Services? Then I would probably say transport, as there is quite a big issue around transport.

“What I would say though is that while the information leads you to believe there are a lot of things out there, when you actually try to get those things you can run into a brick wall.

“The information lets you think that there are loads of people out there who will do loads of things for you, but whenever you ask for something you don’t qualify or they can’t afford it – I think that’s where the gaps are. DIY for example. A lot of people phone up and ask ‘I’ve got a disability and I need somebody to cut the hedge or to fix a tap or something’.

“One of the main things I would have to say is that they either can’t afford a normal engineer to come out and do that because of the price or the bills, or the engineers wouldn’t come out for such a small job.”

For a number of years John was partnered in the Information Department by his colleague Toni Cuddihy and between them they successfully delivered the Information service under a service level agreement (SLA) with the Adults and Communities department of Birmingham City Council.

Because a substantial element of this SLA is providing an outreach service around the city, Toni and John became well-known faces all over Birmingham. In common with the experiences of many other employees, past and present, John started at the BDRC in one role and then developed additional areas of expertise. Part of his role now is that he is BDRC’s ICT Officer, overseeing the Centre’s ICT infrastructure as well as offering ICT advice to service users.

Does John think that computer technology will ever make his main role of Information Officer obsolete?

“I don’t think that that would ever happen. Although we can search the internet, some people don’t know how to do that still and others just can’t grasp the internet. Many are really scared of touching a computer, so I think that there is always going to be a role for information officers.

“People still want to interact with the faced figure and the information that we can give, I would say it’s around experience. A lot of people can look at the internet and a great example would be the benefits system, especially the Disability Living Allowance.

“On the internet it will tell you what you need to do to claim Disability Living Allowance, but then you have a load of people come back to us to say that they have filled out the form, but they still haven’t received anything. I think that is where our experience comes in because we know a bit more than what is actually put on the internet.”

Another worker at BDRC who believes in the personal touch is John Ellis. John, a member of the Employment Preparation Team has worked at BDRC for just over six years.

His job involves engaging and working with disabled people who are preparing for work and the various elements that support that – anything from explaining opportunities within voluntary work or training or direct job searches through to the Centre’s job club and other specific types of support.

Like so many people whose personal stories have been highlighted in this book John is a disabled person himself and first came into the Centre as a potential service user:

“I came into the centre for some advice, as a service user, got to know a couple of the staff and I also tapped into Job Club. Although I had been in the printing trade for more than 30 years I had also been a volunteer in disability for about 20 years. My wife was a senior carer for people with severe learning disability and I had been a volunteer for about 20 years on one of her projects.

“Having come here for advice myself, I soon became a volunteer. It was put to me that I might work well as a volunteer mentor which is what I did, I was very pleased to realise that the organisation offered training even though I was a volunteer and not a member of staff.

“I did an NVQ in mentoring and worked with some of the clients. This went on for a while and I gradually became more and more involved. At this stage I left the printing trade, I gave up printing partly due to my health condition and partly because I was ready for a change and realised that I could possibly do something else.”

John is another example of someone who, due to personal experience of disability, found that the flexible and supportive environment of BDRC and the development and training opportunities available, helped him to develop his own expertise and skills and to move into a role where he feels most effective himself as a support worker.

Whilst John believes that his personal experience of disability gives him valuable empathy towards the service users, he also values the experience brought to the centre by people who are not disabled, but share a commitment to the BDRC’s overall philosophy and culture:

“Having personal experience of disability or experience of working in health or disability I think, is important. I feel it is almost crucial, but I think it would be wrong to disengage non-disabled people, as they can also provide vital experiences. I think that you need an empathy and understanding to work with a lot of our service users.”

The Employment and Training Team supports people with all types of impairment, but John Ellis points out that the common denominator for many of the BDRC’s service users is the lack of confidence which can be related to being a disabled person:

“Confidence can be a major barrier and often if people live with a disability for a number of years, including mental health and emotional health, there is a cross-over of their original disability and their emotional state of health which can impact on their confidence and self-esteem. So, a lot of our work is in rebuilding that and supporting people to regain their confidence, I think this is a major element of the work we do.

“I believe that what makes the BDRC’s Employment and Training service different from many others is the level of support that we are afforded from all levels of management. While we do have targets and outcomes that we have to evidence, we do not have real restrictions on the amount of support that we can give.

“We will revisit clients and will allow them to revisit us and we don’t have cut off times. The doors are always open and I believe that sort of ethic is passed down through the organisation, that is a major thing that I respect about the BDRC and much of the enjoyment I get from the job is that flexibility.”