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INTERVIEW
John O’Brien: consultant, advisor,

teacher, guide – or even a guru?

John O’Brien has been at the forefront of radical thought about how
best to support and liberate people with learning disabilities since the
1970s. In 1987 he conceived the idea of the ‘five accomplishments’ –
choice, competence, respect, community presence and community
participation, vital to human experience, but often missing from the lives of people with
learning disabilities. Yet even those who have known of John and his work for five decades
might struggle to know exactly how to describe him. Is he a consultant or an advisor,
a teacher or a guide, or perhaps even a guru? In our exclusive interview Seán Kelly
finds out how John O’Brien describes himself.

hen we spoke recently For about a dozen years John felt that some assistance we show up and see
W John O’Brien described himself maybe he could do some good by what we can learn”.
simply as “an itinerant curious person”. climbing up the bureaucratic ladder. “I did
He finds places where something good that with modest success and was part of MECHANISTIC MIND-SET
is happening and then tells others about the team of people that created a whole Meanwhile, John is concerned that
it so it can be replicated. He claims little range of community supports for people”. services are increasingly developing a
or no credit for himself. In fact, to hear What could go wrong? “Politics changed. mechanistic mind-set. He describes how
him tell it you would think he has just We got fired by people who were the largest funder of services in the US
been having a good time with his friends. enthusiastic about the construction of has decreed that everyone will have a
new facilities where we were not”. person-centred plan. In times of short
After 50 years of work it seemed like a funding this becomes: “Can’t you figure
good time to take stock with him but it So John became itinerant and curious. out how to do a person-centred plan in
seems I am a just a little early…“Well, it’s “What I’ve done ever since is try to 45 minutes?”. It is seen as a technical
49 years actually, 50 in 2018”. discover people who are working to problem to be solved with video and
create better lives, and communities online courses.“Nobody thinks that that’s
John says he first came to this work by that work just a little bit better, sufficient but some organisations have
accident. “The accident was the Vietnam and seeing if I can find ways to learn kind of got stuck on that”. John says
War and my resistance to it”. John had from them and be of some help to them”. it is essential that staff have time to
The staff had lost sight of their connection “ some assistance the hell I am doing here and what’s
refused the draft. The Federal Court then develop real skills and, as he puts it,
required him to work in an institution for
“get a chance to figure out what
3,000 people. He says the ward he worked
If we can be of
possible in this relationship that I
on had many of the same hallmarks as the
have entered”.
ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
to their fellow humans and were reduced we show up and see He does accept that sometimes tough
to simply supervising and controlling what we can learn. action has to be taken. As a ‘so-called
people. Some of the inmates were violent Over many years he has developed a ” manager’ (“because that was something
and staff had developed the use of fear as I had no gift for whatsoever”) he says he
a form of control. “So,” he says with dismissed a whole bunch of staff.
typical understatement, “that seemed like “Some people are incapable of the
a situation that would be worth some wide range of relationships and it is kind of relationship that’s necessary,
attention”. It was the start of his these links which continue to draw him at least at this point in their lives”.
life’s work. and his partner, Connie Lyle O’Brien,
into the work. They have worked at He has become increasingly interested
STICKY POWER every level, from individual people’s in ‘social labs’ for staff development.
In the early seventies, inspired by situations to involvement with state He mentions a recent event where staff
therapeutic communities, John and his and national policies. “There’s nothing from 12 organisations came together
colleagues moved with people from particularly organised, and certainly in New York State to talk about
the institution into a group home. nothing commercial, about the way individualised support “for people who
However, he quickly found that the this works. People call up and say scare us basically”. John and colleagues
staff reproduced much of the they have gotten themselves into provided some support (“information
institutional setting in the new home. something”. A mess? I suggest. and stuff”) but mostly it was an
“It was an opportunity to see how He smiles. “Sometimes it’s under the opportunity for people to work out what
sticky that power over relationship is banner of a great opportunity, they were doing. John links this to the
and how easy it is to recreate it”. sometimes it’s a mess. If we can be of action-learning sets that David Towell

26 Vol 31 No 1 | Autumn 2017 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk