The Maholian Way - Part Four: Social inclusion and connection

As in other areas of social policy, each person with a serious disability has a care coordinator whose job it is to ensure that all the services work well together in the interests of the client. When these services do work well together it usually means that more institutionalised, more expensive, less satisfactory care can be avoided. But it would be wrong to see the lives of people with serious disabilities as being dominated by professional services. The aim of these services is to allow them and their family carers to be, as much as possible, just ‘regular folks’ in the community. Often the disabled or their families have come up with very creative ideas to deal with their situations.

For example, eight couples or sole parents who were caring for adult children with profound intellectual (and sometimes physical) disabilities got together and set up a co-housing cooperative. They had purpose-built for them a set of apartments that provided self-contained homes for each family, as well as two common living areas – one of which was specifically for the disabled offspring and their carers. Parents were rostered to care for their own and others’ children in this common area, and this arrangement gave parents a lot more time free of caring responsibilities – time to work, pursue other interests, be with other offspring and even have weekends and holidays away. Parents were also able to give each other vital moral support and advice. On top of the rostering arrangement, they still had access to various kinds of outside help.

Then there was a group of older women and men who called themselves with more than a touch of irony the NQP (not quite perfect) Production Brigade.  Most of these folk had significant disabilities, but despite being wheelchair bound, partially blind, deaf or affected by arthritis or emphysema, they would get together in an old church hall on weekdays and tackle fundraising projects for a range of causes – making jams and pickles, knitting, crocheting, doing paintings to be printed as greeting cards, making stuffed toys and all manner of other things that could be sold. Tools, equipment and kitchen appliances were adapted to their capacities, everyone had specific tasks that they could manage, and they all enjoyed themselves hugely in the process.

Connecting across the generations

One of the Maholian Way’s big successes has been in reducing the generation gap. Across much of the world in modern times, the generations have been in effect different cultures separated physically and socially. This has been caused by a number of factors. The unprecedented pace of social and technological change has meant that successive generations have grown up in different worlds, with different technology, occupations, life experiences, beliefs, values, fashions, music and so on. On top of this, competitiveness in the workforce often forces out those who are believed to ‘not quite cut it’ any more, and living in extended families is no longer the norm. As a result, older people tend to live in separate homes and residential complexes, often with little interaction with younger generations, and this separation can reinforce cultural differences between the age groups.

The Maholian Way has seen a challenging of this situation and the social attitudes that underpin it, on a number of fronts. Its focus on recognising, developing and putting into use people’s assets and strengths has ensured that older people can keep involved, keep developing themselves, and keep being useful for as long as they wish to. This can be in paid or voluntary work, full-time or part-time. The half-time work guarantee applies to anyone up to the age of 75. One aspect of the country’s commitment to a good education for all Maholians is that it is a commitment to lifelong education. Thus, for example, seventy and eighty year-olds are encouraged to take classes in computers and other technology so that they can stay connected and benefit from whatever is available. The school system, with its strong connections to community, deliberately seeks to have students interact with people of all ages, and Maholians’ high level of involvement in community organisations also tends to bring the generations together. Many housing cooperatives have deliberately sought to include people of diverse ages, and co-housing arrangements bring those people together for functional and social purposes. Lastly, Maholians in their fifties, sixties and seventies are honoured for being the generation that began to develop relationalist ideas and practices, the distinct Maholian system of which its citizens are so proud.

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