Tuesday 29 April 2014

Story Forty Six - More Risk

It was a couple of weeks after the Mencap Pool had been risk assessed. The Unit had drawn up their risk assessment bible and we were all struggling to follow the many pages of it.

Steven had been back at the pool about a week. There is another dude who uses the pool, who Steven tends to give a wide berth to. The dude is interested in Steven and often comes quite close. Anyway, this particular evening, along comes the dude and, I guess, a bit too close for comfort for Steven, who hit him across the back .From what I can gather it was a push more than a hit. The people at the pool have a great attitude when things like this happen (and Steven has been on the receiving end over the years as much as he's dished out). They deal with it quickly, empathically, firmly and respectfully.

This is now September and one of Steven's support workers had been, quite frankly, driven mad by the oppressive regime of the Unit. For weeks, he had been paranoid that everywhere they took Steven they were being followed by staff from the Unit, waiting for them to slip up. I don't think they were followed but time and again, the Unit treated Steven's regular workers like shit. His feelings were understandable. So, when they got back to the Unit, he wrote a full incident report of what the Unit turned into "an assault".

Outcome = more in depth risk assessments needed. Steven was stopped from going to the pool for another period of reassessment. The regulars at the pool were horrified by this sanction. It's just not how we deal with stuff at the pool. The woman who runs the pool wrote the Unit a letter. And tear jerkingly, the mother of the dude, also wrote a lovely letter, pleading with the Unit to change their mind.

This prompted the most sanctimonious load of shit from the social worker - she outdid herself: "Pretend it didn't happen? So, are our learning disabled people not to be taken seriously when they're assaulted. Don't they have the same rights?"

This was pretty rich coming from her. The person who had lied to Steven for seven months about her plans for Steven's future. Don't learning disabled people have the same right to be told the truth about social worker's plans?

Nope.

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