There is a wonderful public park in Liverpool
called Sefton Park. It is huge and has
lots of attractions such as a boating lake, tennis courts, fountains, miles of
pathways and of course, the café. When I
was with Natural Breaks I was invited in to the inner circle of support staff
and given the most important tool that you could have in learning disabilities,
like a Mason being given his silver trowel.
I was given the RADAR key to the disabled toilet. RADAR stood for the
Royal Association of Disability and Rehabilitation. The key will open over nine thousand disabled
toilets in the United Kingdom. They are
about four times the size of a normal toilet cubicle, always clean, and warm,
and a safe environment if you need to get someone out of the public gaze for
ten minutes or so. Any support staff,
out and about with someone who could turn violent, will know exactly where the
closest disabled toilet is. It is like second
nature to you.
There’s a disabled toilet in the café in the centre
of Sefton Park. Normally you would ask a
staff member in the café for the key but we all had our own, still do. Of course they were a good, clean, safe
environment that we used on many other occasions I think the one I favoured most
was one of the disabled toilets in the Albert Dock complex. Inexperienced staff liked to use the café at
Sefton Park as an informal meeting place as usually there would be more experienced
people about who would lend you a hand should you need it. So during the week you would find the café full
of support staff and the people they supported.
The people supported tended to know each other, as they would all have
come from the same mental asylum, so for them it was quite a social occasion. Outside lolling about, especially in the fine
weather, would be a dozen or so drug addicts all stretched out, dealing or
tripping. Now and again the local
constabulary would provide some entertainment as two or three van loads of them
would race toward the café.
We found it quite funny as there would be no
attempt to make a subtle or concealed approach to the café. The white vehicles with their Day-Glo orange
stripes, which I have to admit did stand out a bit against the prevailing green
of the grass, bushes and trees, would hammer their way along. The druggies would raise themselves up on
their elbows and watch the approaching coppers who would screech to a halt and
erupt from their vehicles chasing whichever druggie that had taken to his, or
her, heels. While the main body of
police would begin to round up the druggies all sorts of shenanigans would unfold
usually resulting in a free for all punch up, involving Tasers, CS gas and batons.
It would be a grand form of
entertainment and it was free.
You would never know what would happen in
Sefton Park. While still with Natural
Breaks myself and another fellow, a qualified social worker, would pick up one
fellow and take him to Sefton Park where he would walk around for two
hours. We stayed about ten feet behind
him as he liked to feel that he was on his own, while he shouted at the trees
and expressed himself with all sorts of involuntary arm movements. After the two hours walking about we would
then drive across Liverpool to the area where he lived and buy him two cans of
beer and a serving of curry and rice from a chip shop. He would drink one can of beer in a single swig
and then eat the curry and rice, as if he were in an eating race, then, almost
without taking a breath, he would swallow the contents of the second can of
beer, emit a huge burp and consider himself satisfied. We would then take him home and leave him
with his parents.
There were two of us with him as he could be
quite unpredictable and if we came close to any other people we would close the
gap between ourselves and he, just in case we had to leap in to action. So here we are one day, we arrive at the park
and we are strolling along. Our man is
shouting and waving away to his heart’s content while in the distance we see
two young boys come on to the path and begin to approach us. Trying not to make the situation obvious we
remain at a safe distance but gradually begin to close the gap. We watch our charge very carefully for any
change in his behaviour which might indicate that he had noticed the pair of
fellows approaching. Both of the young
chaps approaching have bicycles and are pushing them. As the gap closes sufficiently, so that we can
begin to identify features, we see that the two boys are about twelve or
thirteen years old.
We close the gap and, if I dare say, almost
with military precision, now find ourselves flanking our charge as the two youngsters
pass us. I promise you my heart was in
my mouth as I expected that at any moment I was going to have to leap in to
action. Having passed each other we begin
to fall back, to allow our charge his personal space again. The two young fellows had stopped and were
getting on their bicycles, but were watching our small party of three. The danger had almost gone. Our fellow was happy, shouting and punching
the air, when one of the youngsters called out an insult. I suppose if you were walking along with a fellow
who was shouting random obscenities at the trees and punching the air
erratically, you might expect some little guttersnipe to call him names, like
the school children who would taunt Gordon, but no, they left him alone. It was
me they were insulting. My colleague was
a slight five foot six tall fellow, nothing out of the ordinary. I was an impressive Irishman, even though I
say so myself, but I did not expect a twelve year old boy in Sefton Park in
Liverpool to start shouting, “What are you looking at you fat bastard?”
Had they attacked or insulted my charge I would
have dealt with them swiftly and sharply but I was stunned. I may have carried a little more poundage than
the ordinary fellow in the street but I couldn’t believe that they were insulting
me. I do remember that I was embarrassed
beyond belief and when we reached the café my ears were still ringing. As a team leader I was beyond giving one to
one support now, I am not saying that I was above it and I have to admit that I
loved going around all the historic buildings in Liverpool, admiring the architecture
and detail of the buildings. In fact I
felt that I needed to get much higher so that my level of employment would
match my skills. But despite how good I
thought I may have been I was only far too aware that I was still learning
every single day.
I was now directly responsible for supervising
the direct support given to eight people living in the community. Each one of those individuals brought their
own specific requirements that could involve violence, but one brought much
more trouble than that, he brought his brother.
It was rare that we would meet relatives, we would be aware that they
existed, and would facilitate meetings or get-togethers as and when they were
wanted. The only relative I had come
across who had a regular meeting was Jimmy and his brother. In my new house one of the guys had a brother
who insisted on attending every team meeting and demanding that his brother was
first in the queue for everything. At my
first house team meeting most of the staff warned me about his attitude with lots
of raised eyes and most of them stating that he was a real pain.
The brother arrived and sat himself down. It was quite obvious that he thought himself
to be in charge of the meeting. He was
an officious little oaf, a four feet six tall Englishman who would have made a proper
little modern major general ordering the char wallah to polish his boots. I
honestly didn’t think that this fellow had much interest in his brother; it was
as if he was interested in telling us all just how important he was and that we
should be pleased he was there as he knew how to run a meeting, properly. It was strange that the four points I had
highlighted in my ten minute presentation during my interview were not just correct
but were coming back to haunt me. It may
have been nice to secure myself away in one of my offices and immerse myself in
the accounts but every now and again life seemed to be so much more simple and pleasant
just wandering aimlessly around Sefton Park, watching some fellow call the
trees and bushes every name under the sun.
Come to think of it the worst thing that had ever happened to me in Sefton
Park was being called a fat bastard, which in a way I missed for all I had to
do now was walk out of my office with my hair combed the wrong way and I could
have started world war three.
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