Alreet guys!! We finally have something worthy to fill the coveted ‘second post’ slot on our blog – hoorah!
Yesterday we were in attendance at the Social History of Learning Disability Conference, hosted by the Open University in Milton Keynes. We spent all day listening to a vast array of inter-disciplinary speakers presenting talks in reaction to the conference title: ‘Avoiding more Winterbourne Views: What can we learn from history?’
It goes without saying that this day was highly informative and extremely interesting. The entire conference was dedicated to Mabel Cooper, who had been put into institutional care at only 4 weeks old. She spent all of her childhood and a good part of early adulthood in care, living for 20 years in St Lawrence’s Hospital in Caterham, Surrey. While this sheltered, and often unpleasant, early life could have damaged Mabel irrevocably she actually harnessed an inner strength that fed her determination to not just get out of St Lawrence’s but to ‘prove them wrong!’ Mabel’s learning disabilities never held her back and she spent her life speaking up for others with learning disabilities, as well as ensuring her story also got told. The conference was a fitting tribute to Mabel and all the work she’d done, and people she’d influenced. Type her name into Google and you can easily find out more, but for a more official channel, check out her story, in her own words: http://www.open.ac.uk/hsc/ldsite/mabel/
So, at a bleary-eyed 8:30am, Adam, Lottie, Anthony and Vic met at CPM Centre, piled into Adam’s Toyota and hit the M6 heading to Milton Keynes! We managed to keep Adam, our resident military history buff, from detouring to Bletchley Park and arrived at the Open University to the keynote speaker, the fantastic and formidable Margaret Flynn. Margaret delivered an arousing and impassioned talk on her findings at Winterbourne View (having authored the Serious Case Review into Winterbourne View. See the Report, via South Gloucestershire Council: http://bit.ly/10KuuXY)
There followed a series of incredible presentations centred around topics such as Citizen Advocacy, Belonging in a Community, living conditions, the history of institutions, independence for people with learning disabilities, the abuse individuals have suffered, and the importance of staff development. There were speakers from across the UK, as well as from Ireland, Australia and even 3 researchers from Harstad University College, Norway!
We broke for lunch (which was delicious and enjoyed in the sunshine) and then reconvened with a tribute to Mabel. The second talk of the afternoon immediately piqued our interest as it centred round a HLF-funded oral history project, culminating in a book, a new website and a short film. ‘No Going Back’ was devised by Tim Keilty and Kellie Woodley and saw them collate the history and stories of 12 residents at Prudhoe Hospital, Northumberland. (www.centreforwelfarereform.org/) Despite Prudhoe’s ghastly history of ill-treatment towards people with learning disabilities it only closed last year and Tim even had photos of the research team delving in skips to try and retrieve valuable archival material that helped inform the project! Although our archive here at CPMids does need some organising – we shouldn’t have to be diving into the rubbish bags during our research! (We hope!)
The final three presentations followed the ethos of learning from history, using it to inform and educate the future, about mistakes that shouldn’t be repeated and changes that need to be made. The Oxfordshire Family Support Network gave a moving, and extremely candid, talk about how family members had been affected by the treatment of their learning disabled relatives, the fights they’d taken on, the situations they and their families had been through, and their thoughts for how their experiences could inform the future. (http://www.oxfsn.org.uk/) The conference closed with Jan Walmsley throwing some open questions to the floor about how all we had learnt could be used looking forward.
While all the speakers managed to tackle this question admirably within their presentations, and the many Q & A sessions throughout the day, the final word should really go to Mabel, who when looking into her own history had these final thoughts to share:
“It shocked me, and I think it makes you different if you know that, it makes you harder than you would be normally. Some of it is upsetting but I think, for me, it’s been great now that I know most of it. I think you understand what’s going on if nothing else. It helps you in understanding yourself a lot more… It has made me anyway, it’s made me a lot stronger.”
Mabel Cooper, ‘I’d Like to Know Why’, 2013.
It was a fantastic day and well worth the four-hour round trip – thanks for driving Adam! We came back buzzing with ideas and comments, chattering throughout the journey back about all we’d heard and how we felt about it. I am sure it will have a direct impact on this project and how it progresses, not least because it has highlighted the vital importance of how history impacts the future, and more importantly how the stories of those involved need to heard and shared.
And with that, we’re off to buy cakes for our volunteers meeting this afternoon, because there’s no better way to get the ball rolling on this project then to start getting the research done and talking to our users about their experiences of Cerebral Palsy Midlands!
Watch this space for more…
Lottie. x
For a more complete round-up of the conference, and all the speakers involved, please see: http://www.open.ac.uk/hsc/ldsite/conferences_v2.html as they update their ‘Annual Conferences’ page, or leave a comment below for me to answer directly.
CPMids 