Getting the adult disabled into the community for crafts and leisure projects

Press, 1 July 1986, Page 13

Getting the adult disabled into the community for crafts and leisure projects

While eating a lunch of fish and chips they have all agreed on, the group of disabled adults are able to look out of big picture-windows to the next-door Bishopdale Park. One of the group had gone over to the shopping centre to order the lunch. She had done some shopping and banking while she was there. "Do you know what nuclear workers have for lunch?” asked a man in a wheelchair. No-one knew the answer. “Fission chips,” he said. The disabled, doing crafts and other leisure activities once a week at Leacroft Lounge, a rugby league clubrooms, is the satellite recreation centre in a network being planned by the Crippled Children Society. Satellite groups will be closer to the communities where the disabled live, learning first-hand how to use the service those neighbourhoods offer. At the same time, they will enjoy the company of able-bodied people, not just the volunteer helpers who come along but others who want a place to work on their f'rnftc

STAN DARLING

Four disabled people in the first group come from their own homes, which they run. “We are moving the older disabled into the community, much along the lines of school mainstreaming,” says Shirley Falloon, who has been working part-time with Crippled Children Society patients for 11 years. She met a lot of her disabled clients when she worked in orthotics, the splint department, at Christchurch Hospital, and started as a volunteer worker with them. “I went in to give a hand, and ended up staying there,” she says. The satellite groups of disabled people will relieve a shortage of space needed for living skills training at the adult centre in Kilmarnock Street, but benefits for clients are expected to be even greater as they learn more how to get out on their own. “You can get a bit bogged down when you are going to the same nlace everv dav. seeing the

same people,” says Mrs Falloon. “The I.H.C. is already working this way. It also gets people in various areas familiar with people in wheelchairs. We have got to know some of the ladies in the pensioner flats (near the clubrooms), and some of the girls have read stories to kids in the creche. “Instead of going out and trying to find community groups that could absorb the disabled, we did it the other way around, inviting the able-bodied to come to us and join in whatever activities we have got.” Gilda Washboume, one of the satellite group members, is enjoying her extended independence. She is doing a project in Waimairi’s nearby Bishopdale Library on her disability, cerebral palsy, which is an extension of a library learning project that was conducted in the central city library. The disabled learn how to use the library system, “doing the

whole thing,” she says. She likes the good selection of big print books at the suburban library, “and it is a lot easier to move around in.” “We encourage them to extend as far as possible in their interests,” says Mrs Falloon. “The C.C.S. should not be the be-all and end-all it once was.” One client in the group, Leonie Moir, has joined a leatherwork group of able-bodied people in Harewood for weekly sessions. She also attends an art class with Cobham Intermediate School pupils once a week. Another is taking independent singing classes.

Becoming more independent

The disabled arrange their own transport to get to the centre, and pay for their crafts materials. Some are now making gingham skirts and tablecloths. It is the first fine needlework most of them have done. Daphne Ryan, who lives with

her husband in Redwood, has been in Christchurch' about 10 years. She had gone to Crippled Children facilities in Dunedin, where she used to live, and went to Kilmarnock Street for four or five years, “but it was not really my scene,” she says. When the new group was about to start, Mrs Falloon rang to tell her about it. “It’s fun, and it gets me out of the house,” says Mrs Ryan, who is working on a bead bag with beads she cuts herself at home from plastic tubing, on a machine her husband built. “He is quite versatile,” she says. Her husband usually brings her to the group on his way to a pottery class at the community centre. "We encourage the clients to manage at least part of their finances,” says Mrs Falloon. When lunches are ordered, the disabled have a checklist to follow. They decide what they will have that day, write it down if they can, keep receipts, check their change, and balance their books. Many of them live in the Laura Fergusson Home in Ham Road. “It is a case of them

learning things most of us take for granted,” says Mrs Falloon. “Living in a home, it is all laid on for them.” They are able to open bank accounts. Gilda Washboume is 32 years old now, and has had an account since she was 16. Her signature changes every time she tries to write it, she Says, and she has a special Trusteebank Canterbury Disabled Person Identification Card, with her photograph and name on it, to help her do banking transactions. On a recent Monday, a macrame tutor came along to give pointers. Demonstrations are also arranged for the group. Before Easter, a woman came to show how to produce homemade chocolate. The next week, the group made Easter eggs. Clients have a round-table discussion in the morning before each session begins, talking about things they would like to do. “We want as much of their input as possible,” says Mrs Falloon. “I am quite happy if some come in just for the company. We would like to have

other disabled people join us.” i A second community crafts 1 and leisure centre session, held < ch Tuesdays, will be started at ] Leacroft Lounge soon as an extension of the library programme. It will have mainly younger people, with crafts and games suitable to their age and interests. Only two from the Monday group will be there. Some of the Tuesday disabled people will be more handicapped, without the hand skills of those who attend on Mondays. Barbara Garrett, supervisor of the Crippled Children society adult centre in Kilmarnock Street, says that other community craft and leisure centre facilities are being sought tn south and north-east Christchurch. They should be places near neighbourhood shops, banks, libraries, and creches. “Under the old system, they just come here, filled in their day, and expected to be here from 16 to 60,” says Mrs Garrett. “Now there is more enthusiasm.” Most of the clients could not

read or do basic arithmetic. Living skills training Is trying to overcome such obstacles to independence. x •’Once we started with this kind of training, of course, the possibilities became endless," says Mrs Garrett Only space and the lack of a good ratio of instructors to clients were limitations. The adult centre, with satellite centres reducing some of the pressure, will be able to do more training. The society’s total adult clientele is 53, reduced from 70 last year. Many who do not come now were over 60 or accident cases. Most of them were hospital patients.. The adult centre has a wide range of living skills activities, including typing, computer work, remedial reading, and music therapy. When an extension is built, it will have a training kitchen. On the centre’s waiting list are-teen-agers who are still in school. They will come in for living skills training before going out into the new community groups.