Month: June 2013

Will we ever get a proper summer?

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While the weather is nice at the moment, for the last day of June, it is not what I would call a properly summer when we can really enjoy the benefits and even the pitfalls of the sun like in so many other countries. If this is global warming than the UK is getting a rough deal as our weather has turned wet rather than sun. I think for myself and so many others, sunshine is connected to so many happy memories and this is probably why we crave it so much, prepared to travel hundreds or thousands of miles for the change of getting sone.

 

I hope the rest of the summer months actually produces something which may resemble a summer although I am sadly doubtful.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  


The accessibility of making claims

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There is a group of disabled ‘activists’ would will complain about anything to do with the welfare reforms and the latest thing they have picked upon is the accessibility of the claim process of applying for Personal Independence Payments, the replacement to Disability Living Allowance. The new process starts with a short telephone call, where someone may ring up on behalf of sometime, to receive the application form, presumably so better information can be sought.  You can also write in and request a form although it may delay your application.

 

Well these activists are jumping up and down saying Deaf people and people with learning difficulties can’t use the phone like they are mindless idiots, assuming through their prejudiced minds, these disabled people have never had to make a phone call before. These activists seem to be making it up as they go along with no interest of what those who are actually affected think or want. It reminds me of the height of political correctness in the 80s and 90s when white middle classes jobworths in councils were banning school children from singing bar bar black sheep or calling a blackboard a blackboard, as it was racism, even although people from ethnic minorities did not care at all.

 

And as something you solves problems rather than just moan, I have established from DWP, that within the realities of implementing new technology, the PIP application form will be available from GOV.UK next year so these activists will have to find something new to complain about!

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Why is there no disabled Big Brother housemate?

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As people may know I wrote the title of my blogs a few weeks in advance so I have time to think. I am know aware that in this year’s Big Brother, which I am watching after a few years break, that is a housemate, Sam, who is hard of hearing, although he is not very open about his impairment and I would doubt considers himself to be disabled. This leads me to ask why this year there is not an out and proud disabled housemate?

 

I have always seen Big Brother as a measure of society’s acceptance of issues and after Steve, not Baron a few years ago, I had hoped the level and complexity of impairment of a housemate would increase but sadly not. And I fear one reason for this has been the increased use of the tragedy model by charities and groups like Disabled People Against Cuts and WeRSparticus who have undone 30 years of social inclusion, turning the public perceptions of disabled people from that of being potential pioneers of inclusion to objects of pity.

 

A politically sensitive Channel 5 will not wish to upset the public or more likely the disability extremists by turning the show into a debate of welfare reforms upsetting the pity the public now has for disabled people as a result of the destructive anti-cuts lobby who are proclaiming their prejudices against disabled people as the new norm. Big Brother is possibly a concrete example of the damage being done in the inclusion of disabled people by those who have stolen our voice.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  


The history of personal computing

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The history of the personal computer is one that fascinates me but I have very much lived it. I had my first computer when I am 7, a Commodore PET with just 16k, which is a billionth of the memory on my iPad. I have embraced the advances in computing over the last thirty years one by one to put them into real live application in ways beyond what they were often intended. Computers have been the key to my liberation as a significantly impaired people, providing me with a connection to the world that enables me to work, rest and play.

 

We need to recognise and celebrate the history of the computer and how it has enabled so many of us to do so much more with our lives and make contributions which were previously unimaginable! There is so much I have to thank computers for as I admire its short history.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  


Is the social model optional?

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In recent discussions with a fellow disability activists who is advocating the rights of ‘sick’ people as being very difference to disabled people, she suggested that the social model does not need to apply to everyone and that as a foundation of policy, it was in some way optional. This is a part of a wider campaign by those who define themselves as sick, often as well as being disabled, to escape the responsibilities laid within the social model and to adopt instead a tragedy medical model for an arbitrary list of impairment, often minor impairments, which are defined as sickness so can be dealt with an unemployable and worthy of being written off with label based compensation in exchange for exclusion from society.
I see the social model as core to the government’s social policy on disability and impairment, and it is ridiculous to enable one impairment group to be excluded and allowed to adopt a medical model appropriate simply because they feel like not being contributing citizens. I fully acknowledge that accessibility has not been fully developed to raise all impairments, especially those dealing with pain, where a major reform of the notion of employment is needed. As someone with cerebral palsy and pain issues, I am insulted that some will fight for my fight to work because I have cerebral, despite it significantly affected my lifestyle, but would have me written off as unemployable to be excluded from society because I have chronic pain issues that is far less significant!
If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

Employing disabled people

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When we talk about the employment of disabled people, people often just focus on what the disabled people can or can not do, but if we believe in the social model, than the real focus should be on employers on how they can develop their policy and practices to be more inclusive to disabled people, which as an topic is still in its infancy, especially the inclusion of those with significant impairments.
In the past, the business case for employing disabled people has focused on the fact disabled people are perfect employees who never go sick. I fear this ‘integration’ talk has been unhelpful as disabled people should no longer have to compensate with superhuman abilities to earn their existence in the workplace. Employers want the best out of people that helps their business and that means to find those diamond employees, employers need to be flexible in supporting people to work for them to get the very best from them, assuming they are the best applicants for the job.
Adaptations may include allowing people to work more from home, something which can been vital for me, being flexible on hours by focusing on agreed outcomes and deadlines, and much more we are only starting to see happen. It is only with this flexibility can we start getting a win win solution for disabled people and employers.
If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

Ten disabled people in a bed

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Remember the nursery rhythm “Ten in a bed and the little one said”? Well at the moment I am seeing this as an metaphor for how people with minor impairments and on the boundaries of fitness are the ‘little one’ while the first to be pushed out are people with severe and significant impairments, more than one and more than what many people with minor impairments can imagine or care about.
The recent push towards the tragedy model by those against the welfare reforms people they are the minority being asked to let go of compensation based cash they do not need, as dramatically pushed the wider agenda to their way of thinking as they wish society to write off people with any  impairment who wishes to be considered disabled. This must clear those with the severest level of impairment are by implication being excluded from the so-called debate and therefore potentially losing their place in society only recently won. The social model is being reversed and  deep rooted prejudice, even amongst many disabled people, means issues with abortion and euthanasia are debated as opposed to fought against as the wishes of family carers, often portrayed as victims looking after their burdens, take priority over the individuals right to exist.
The defence to what is happening by the little one is a cry of unity by those dissenting voices, like myself, from those to fear for their lives by the medical model victimhood that is pushing many disabled people out of the metaphorical bed and the equation!
If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

The social model values my existence

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The social model has been the cornerstone of the liberation of disabled people for almost 50 years and I believe has been so important to valuing myself as a contributing member of society. While it is not perfect as it ignores the cultural elements of impairment, it is as relevant to modern day society as it has ever been despite the way it is now despised by the sick movement.

 

The social model is not just about ramps and text phones but about complex large changes in social policy and how things like employment are defined to make them more accessible to many impairments including those currently being defined as sickness. It is a model that has been successful but for some impairments, it has not got started! Far more important, it is a model that gives disabled people, including myself, the right to be responsible, as opposed as to medical model, which gives people the right to be victims.

 

I owe my existence as a credible member of society to the social model and I will not yet others take that away from me.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

The sick are not special

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In the last three years, born out of the welfare reform, has been a minority movement building to redefine long term ‘sickness’ as a special kind of impairment that does not fill into the rights and responsibility of the social model, but wish instead to call for new social policy based on a tragedy model as they say people with major impairment can of course work, but because they are so special, their often minor impairments mean they clearly can not. They argue they support of course the rights of disabled people to exist but not at the expense of them seeking pity. They seem to be happy to steal the benefits of being disabled without accepting the consequences.

 

Disabled people fought against the sick role to be considered valid citizens who can work but the sick is fighting against the sick role to define their right not to recover and return to work. They are happy for fit people who are recovering to be nastily be declared unfit with all the notions of invalidity that goes along with that, assuming there is a notion of being unfit. While they create a list of impairments and labels they wish to declare unemployable and excluded from society, the reality is their conditions do not make them special.

 

WCA is not broken but society”s attitude towards the employability of people with all impairments is. I am not allowing the pity seeking demands of someone who think they are above the mechanics of society, as a special oddity, to destroy the public’s acceptance of the social model and therefore my right to exist as an included member of society.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  


UK is envy of the World for disabled people

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No where is perfect but I am held the view, based on my observations that the UK is the best place for disabled people to live. Even if we believe the worst case scenario of what the current government is doing, this country is miles more advance than any other country in terms of the balance between social care, financial support, healthcare, rights, accessibility and attitudes.
You may think America is up there with the Americans with Disabilities Act but it is not as it fails as a nation on the other factors with only pockets of good practice. Australia comes the closest second. While the nordic countries has been hailed in the past, the money spent has been very medical model and its just not as good. France is pretty backwards for a host of reasons and then the third world is well third world.
So time for many disabled people to stop complaining and to start appreciating what a great country the UK is.
If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com