by Peter Beresford, service user and professor of social policy at Brunel UniversityWhen we write as service users, mostly what are trying to do, is set things out from our points of view and lived experience, to try and gain understanding and make life better for people with similar experiences. I think that is true whatever kind of service user we are, what movement we are part of - disabled people's, older people's, or mental health service users'/survivors' movement.
This is a time when disabled people and other service users have felt under special pressure to put our cases, fight our corner and challenge some of the worrying developments underway. I am thinking particularly of the proposal in the current social care green paper to put an end to Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance.
This has led to much determined comment from service users on blogs and websites, as well as in professional and mainstream media. The importance we attach to it is reflected in the fact that, as I write, nearly thirteen thousand people have signed a petition to oppose ending these universal benefits on the Prime Minister's website.
Attacks on the powerless
Then there is all the talk of 'welfare reform' at the Labour and Conservative Party conferences. And what does this always seem to end up meaning? Yes, it's generally about more attacks on particularly powerless groups of people and more plans to cut services and cut welfare benefits.
So we have had plans for punitive services for teenage mothers from New Labour as well as calls to rigorously retest people on incapacity benefits from the Tories and proposals to police unemployed people even more fiercely (at a time of rising and massive unemployment) and to take away benefits from those seen as uncooperative.
On the defensive
So it is a busy time for service users. We are on the defensive. And meanwhile most of those service users who are struggling with such commitment, effort and determination to challenge the powers that be - to put a word in for those who are disempowered, not only have to battle against being criticised as 'unrepresentative' and 'the usual suspects'. They also have to deal with the day to day challenges of being a service user - of coping with both the difficulties and distress that may go with it, as well as the nasty reactions they can often routinely expect both from the service system that is meant to be there to help and the wider world they work hard to live in on something like equal terms.
Working hard for a voice
It's a very personal matter being a service user. It isn't a professional status, or part of a career ladder. I am lucky at present in having a job and the income and security that goes with it. That's not true for a lot of active service users, working hard to create a powerful voice for others, while their own benefits, support and security may be no less at risk than the next person's. It really is time that the respect and recognition that such service users should be given, was unstintingly offered. They represent a powerful and modern expression of altruism, voluntarism, self-help and mutual aid.
This has led to much determined comment from service users on blogs and websites, as well as in professional and mainstream media. The importance we attach to it is reflected in the fact that, as I write, nearly thirteen thousand people have signed a petition to oppose ending these universal benefits on the Prime Minister's website.
Attacks on the powerless
Then there is all the talk of 'welfare reform' at the Labour and Conservative Party conferences. And what does this always seem to end up meaning? Yes, it's generally about more attacks on particularly powerless groups of people and more plans to cut services and cut welfare benefits.
So we have had plans for punitive services for teenage mothers from New Labour as well as calls to rigorously retest people on incapacity benefits from the Tories and proposals to police unemployed people even more fiercely (at a time of rising and massive unemployment) and to take away benefits from those seen as uncooperative.
On the defensive
So it is a busy time for service users. We are on the defensive. And meanwhile most of those service users who are struggling with such commitment, effort and determination to challenge the powers that be - to put a word in for those who are disempowered, not only have to battle against being criticised as 'unrepresentative' and 'the usual suspects'. They also have to deal with the day to day challenges of being a service user - of coping with both the difficulties and distress that may go with it, as well as the nasty reactions they can often routinely expect both from the service system that is meant to be there to help and the wider world they work hard to live in on something like equal terms.
Working hard for a voice
It's a very personal matter being a service user. It isn't a professional status, or part of a career ladder. I am lucky at present in having a job and the income and security that goes with it. That's not true for a lot of active service users, working hard to create a powerful voice for others, while their own benefits, support and security may be no less at risk than the next person's. It really is time that the respect and recognition that such service users should be given, was unstintingly offered. They represent a powerful and modern expression of altruism, voluntarism, self-help and mutual aid.
For alternative party conference viewing on welfare benefits and low pay, go to the Green Party Trade Union Group blog. There, one of the issues discussed is wages for home-based carers of disabled people. (I'm the speaker on the left in the short-sleeved shirt.)
I might not be as eloquent as BBC commentator Nick Robinson, but I talk with more insight gained from my Inbox, regarding the struggles of parents of disabled children in an under-supportive society who Labour and the Tories want to make into workfare fodder while ignoring their contribution to the UK economy at a time when New Labour want to marketise social care.
Thank you for this blog. It sums up exactly how I feel as a carer as well.
Why are we being attacked and villified so - it seems the banking crisis has been used as an excuse to turn on the vulnerable in society - helped in no small way I imagine by ex-banker David Freud who was informing Labour welfare policy and is now working for David Cameron!
Why aren't social and welfare policies drawn up by the people who understand them best - the people who are directly affected by them?! Is that because it is assumed we are all single parents of kids with a syndrome who deserve our lot because we are thick and feckless?
I am a single parent, due to circumstances beyond my control, of a daughter with an autism spectrum condition. I am just trying to get going with an OU degree and I run a branch of the National Autistic Society which I set up as I can't stand being bored (and daytime tv is truly intolerable!)I had a successful career as a telecommunications engineer until my daughter's school and my child-carer decided they could no longer cope with her behaviour and I have spent the last 10 years battling and advocating. Sometimes I wish I was thick (or hadn't received and accepted my education in the education system) and I was uncaring and fecless - at least then I wouldn't be able to see what is coming for my daughter with the welfare reform currently going through and for myself in the future battling for her.
Karen says, "Daytime TV is intolerable." I agree to some extent, and would argue that the high salaries paid to BBC frontline staff makes the situation so much worse when they are reporting from Tory Party Autumn conference.
I had chosen to avoid Labour Party Conference broadcasts, and picked up what I needed to from Community Care website and magazine including Mithran Samuels' brilliant contrast between Gordon Brown's rhetoric about correctional 'supervision' for teenage single parents, and the genuine support that Foyer Federation had in mind as prospective contractor.
But in Tory Party conference week, i made the mistake of turning on 'The Daily Politics'' coverage of Tory Party conference. A roving reporter with mic was interviewing the Tory faithful, and one of them said her greatest disappointment was that her party's spokesperson on state benefits was not more swingeing in their drive to cut state benefits at this time of national debt.
The same interviewee said however, that she was disappointed about Tory lack of progress on equality for women.
And then Nick Robinson came on, with his preview of David Cameron's speech. Touching upon reference to the death of Cameron's son Ivan, Nick Robinson said, "But that has nothing to do with politics."
In just the same way as many MPs' cushioned lifestyles leads them to live on a different planet from the people they are supposed to represent, I would argue:
i)that broadcasters whose salaries are paid through my TV licence payments should be subjected to paycuts; and
ii) coverage of Lib Dem, Labour and Tory Party conferences would be much more balanced if the roving mic person was out interviewing disabled people and family carers.
I would argue that the BBC Daily Politics Show coverage of the 'big three' went even further than the likes of Trisha on Five TV to give benefit claimants a bad name and fuel the attacks on our benefits.
I think that is an interesting point, it made me think a bit. Thanks for sparking my ability to get to think. Sometimes I get so much in a rut that I just feel like a record.
The Poor and Destitute as well as those with
Anxiety Depression and other Disabilities Need
Help and Assistance from Our Government whose
Moral Duty is to be of Assistance.
Given the Expenses Scandal it is Even More
Disgusting and Unacceptable for there to be
any Benefit Cuts
If Anything given the Terrible Economic Crisis
and Unemployment at 2.5 Million Poor Relief
should be Increased
A Government which Fails in it's Duty of Care
is Not Fit to Hold Office and should therefore
Resign
I wanted to let you know that your post has hit home with me. We are now looking to consolidate our credit card debt into a single loan. We can't seem to get out from under our debt. But we don't really know where to start.