The news is full of dire warnings about labour shortages in many areas of the economy.
The shortages, we are told, will affect supply chains, the availability of goods, entertainment and hospitality and other areas of our lives where we have often assumed, complacently, that there will always be a magical supply of people to make sure our lives run smoothly.
What never figures in this debate is that there are more than a million people labelled as having learning disabilities in the UK among whom the employment rate – not the unemployment rate – is 6%.
Surveys consistently show that most of them are eager and willing to work, and are more than capable of doing so.
So we have critical labour shortages, and we have a large group of willing workers who are only prevented from working by social attitudes that designate them incapable of doing so. What a waste of talent and potential.
Not seen as a normal goal
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
Meanwhile, in the midst of labour shortages for which we need trained people ready to work, Enterprise Works in Swindon, a council-run social enterprise that produces timber products, is planning to make 12 people redundant.
Some of them have worked there for 20 years. There is considerable disquiet, which has reached the local press, over both the redundancy consultation and the support promised but apparently not provided to the staff at risk.
The underlying problem in situations like this – and Swindon is by no means alone – is that work is seen as way down the priority list for people with learning disabilities. The social care system generally shows little interest beyond meeting basic needs to enable people to stay alive.
Of course, much of this arises from pressures on social care budgets that allow only basic care needs to be met – but it also springs from a mindset that people with learning disabilities do not belong in the workplace.
Inhuman, deathless prose
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
I receive a press release that tells me a company has “agreed terms to go public and become part of an expanding plc”.
This will be acquired for £4m by a “diversified investment holding company” becoming their 26th group company as part of their “vertical” (whatever that might be). And so it ploughs on, in deathless, corporate prose, for several paragraphs.
If you have the perseverance and the will to read through to the end, you will find out that it is from a care company that provides services to people with learning disabilities, among others.
It’s a good job this was eventually mentioned because otherwise, for all I knew, I was reading about a company that makes widgets. This is how people become commodities and lose their humanity.
Refugees without words
Finding homes for supported living can be difficult. Lisa Brown is bringing property investors and care providers together to design and create accommodation to meet various needs.
We have all watched the disturbing and distressing scenes at Kabul Airport as many thousands of people have tried to flee the new Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
In this darkness, a tiny glimmer of light is the brilliant response by Books Beyond Words who have produced the compelling A Refugee’s Story, which you can download from https://booksbeyondwords.co.uk/afghanistan.
This not only helps an often voiceless community to tell their story, but also will enable others to understand the stories of refugees who they meet. Highly recommended.
