Opinion
8 April 2009 | Volume 12 | Number 3 LEARNING DISABILITY PRACTICE
Letters
If you want to express your opinion about any of the issues in the journal, write a letter to
the editor. Write to Colin Parish at The Heights, 59-65 Lowlands Road, Harrow-on-the-Hill,
Middlesex HA1 3AW or email colin.parish@rcnpublishing.co.uk
What's your view?
Dangerous liaisons
As the chief executive officer of The Survivors
Trust, an umbrella agency for 125 third
sector support services for rape and sexual
abuse victims, I was interested to read Chris
Jones's article, Friendship, Romance and
Possibly More (Learning Disability Practice,
March 2009).
Thank goodness the door is finally
opening to acknowledge that people
with learning disabilities have a right
to emotionally and physically fulfilling
relationships. However, any campaign for
these rights must be informed by a clear
understanding that people with learning
disabilities face a significantly increased risk
of being sexually victimised.
As much as it is a challenge to gain
acceptance that learning disabled people have
sexual needs, it is still a challenge to gain
acceptance of the scale of sexual victimisation
they suffer. Specialist sexual abuse support
groups report that up to 68 per cent of
learning disabled girls and up to 30 per cent
of learning disabled boys will be sexually
abused before they are 18 years old.
It can take many years for a victim to tell
someone what has happened and people with
learning disabilities are often not believed
when they do. In many cases, the abuser
has a central role as a `care giver' in the
victim's life. Specialist services report that
learning disabled victims have less access to
justice and less access to support and that
mainstream therapeutic services are often not
equipped to help.
Sexual abuse can lead to lifelong
difficulties � poor mental and physical
health, low self-esteem and difficulties with
relationships and trust. Chris Jones comments
that `being chosen or feeling special to
another' are significant drivers for people with
learning disabilities who want to feel `normal'.
Unfortunately, this is also something that can
be exploited by an abuser through `grooming'
the victim or even the victim's family.
It is the right of every person to receive
care and access to justice in the event that
they need it. This also includes the most
marginalised members of society. Similarly,
everyone should be able to enjoy life to the
best of their ability.
Let us hope that the Mates'nDates service
means that more people can do this safely
and without having to suffer the devastating
effects of abuse.
Fay Maxted, chief executive, The Survivors
Trust, www.thesurvivorstrust.org
Pay attention, MPs
A total of 166 MPs have now signed the
Early Day Motion which highlights cuts to
services for people with learning disabilities
and the fact that there is not enough
funding in the system to meet the needs
of the growing population, and honour the
government's promises.
An Early Day Motion (EDM) is used
to demonstrate the strength of support in
parliament for an issue, although few of them
are ever debated.
It is rare for this number of MPs to pay
attention to learning disability. We are
currently 11th out of a total of more
than 1,000 EDMs. This just goes to
show what we can achieve when the sector
acts together.
It is vital that we get over the message that
services for people with learning disabilities
are under funded before the green paper on
the future of social care is published, probably
later this spring.
We would like to have 200 MPs sign the
EDM, because this would really make the
government sit up and listen.
Learning Disability Practice readers can go
to our website www.learningdisabilitycoalition.
org.uk and click `Contact your MP'. It will take
just a few seconds to send an email to your
MP and make a big difference.
Heather Honour, director, Learning
Disability Coalition
Show me the money
Banks coLLapse. Industries fail. The
jobless total hits the two million mark.
The last time things were so bad some of
you were still at school. We didn't know
it then but all our troubles were about
to be swept far away as the new Labour
administration entered Downing street on
a wave of optimism, sunshine and driving
a Ford Galaxy people carrier. Happy days.
Back then, pre-Valuing People, a
person with a learning disability could
wait ages for an appointment to see
a doctor before being ignored by said
professional, who would carry out
the consultation with their carer and
then advise that whatever was wrong
with Johnny it was probably due to his
`illness'. Job done. next patient, please.
not any more. The nHs has been
reformed so frequently that staff have
motion sickness. But one beneficial
aspect has been a growing interest in
the health and wellbeing of people with
learning disabilities.
The Department of Health has realised
that access to services and health
improvement messages apply to us all,
and none more so than our client group,
whose inferior health status can no
longer be explained away by a primary
diagnosis.
so what's the cunning plan? Well, part
of it at least involves paying Gps. and
fair play, when your average salary is just
over �100,000 (count them) and your
hours are being cut, you'd want a bit
more to offer annual health checks to the
learning disability patients on your list.
But if that's all it takes out of the
whopping nHs budget to get some
equity in health care, then let's pay them
their money. I mean, we're not talking
banker-sized bonuses here. There's a
difference between addressing the Quality
outcomes Framework and wrecking the
world economy. so, I'll see you at the G20
summit. protest and survive.
Alex McClimens is senior research fellow
at Sheffield Hallam University
Viewpoint

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