Contributions from Maria Kambouri
Abstract
This paper discusses the development of provision in a training programme which prepares young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities for employment. The example examined here is of a management that wishes to share power with the trainees (rather than power over them) and do to so has established a client forum composed by trainees only and has employed an external facilitator who is independent of the programme. This forum has the power to interview and appoint new staff, to change working conditions and to request additional support or resources. The role of the external facilitator is extremely important in training participants to learn about process (procedures, minutes, taking turns to speak), participation (prompt behaviour and words) and action (remind, inform, encourage to act) which would enable them to be actively empowered as clients of the training programme. The paper offers an evaluation of this process in action.
Introduction
This is a case study looking into the functioning of a client forum in a training setting which prepares young people with learning disabilities for employment. The paper will not explore in detail either the individual histories or the nature of the training programme. Its main purpose is to evaluate the way in which such a forum can operate as an active form of empowerment. Often, because young people with learning disabilities require additional support and resources they are particularly prone to experience management structures which impose power over them (e.g. Kitchen et al., 1998). Whilst research indicates that people with learning disabilities want to earn their living as valued members of society (Reid and Bray, 1998), there is also evidence that where they are black, poor and socially excluded, they face additional hurdles of discrimination in the workplace (McAnespie, Kitteringham & Corbett, 2000). Empowerment is a widely used term which indicates a commitment to counteract the effects of social prejudice and to support self-advocacy and confidence. As Fenton (1989) suggested over ten years ago, it is about educating people to challenge society'society'ss barriers rather than passively to accept their status. However, as Dowson (1997) noted, this is a complex process:
There is an obvious contrast between the idea of user empowerment and the idea of users taking power. Taking power implies action by the disempowered on their own initiative to wrest power from the powerful. (p.105)
There are examples from the North American context, of training programmes in a bakery, gardening or packaging scheme where management have established a model of sharing power with rather than power over the trainees (Neath and Schriner, 1998). This relates to the notion of taking power in that it is an active process of sharing decision-making to the extent that trainees can over-ride management decisions. If followed through to its full implementation, it is something in the nature of a take-over in business language, albeit that aspects of budgeting and planning would have to be negotiated.
The example examined here is of a management which wishes to share power with the trainees. Part of this process is to establish and support a client forum. The client forum was the answer to both the managers plea for a fuller participation to provide what people are asking for and the clients desire for a voice. As the research literature indicates, such user participation often stays within the realm of rhetoric. In this case, management took the initiative not only to establish a forum but also to employ an external facilitator. The manager did not want a token participation of just one client representative on their board. The establishment of a user or client forum was a training ground for preparing several people for a fuller participation-role in negotiating with managers and employers. Rather than have an internal member of staff in the role of an advisor in the forum, it was decided to bring in somebody from outside who had wide experience of facilitating such groups. In this way, they could ensure that complaints were made freely, without any restrictions.
This case study research involved several visits between July to December 1999 to meet with the client participants to attend their forum as well as to interview two managers, two external facilitators and the chair of the forum. Because this is not a detailed, ethnographic case study of the training programme and forum in its broad context, the focus is on the process of empowerment in action. We will use the terms 'Client Forum' and 'Users Forum' interchangeably, as both are used by different informants.
Our evaluation will explore the following concepts: the balance between 'power with' and 'power over' trainees; and training for empowerment through participation in the Client Forum. As the research literature implies, the current impetus is to share power with people with learning disabilities. Recognising that this is a challenging process, we will discuss how clients develop a recognition of their needs, how they function in the working environment, and how they speak up for themselves in asking for support.
The balance between sharing power with trainees rather then over them will be examined at two levels: at the management level and at the external facilitator level. We would argue that although management has opted for empowering clients via the creation of the Forum, they have not yet formalised this medium of power in terms of establishing a bill of rights and of implementing points raised to form action plans. Although the external facilitator is there to support the clients rather than the management, she or he may still exercise certain power over clients albeit at their invitation. As the research literature indicates, clients are particularly dependent on the support of trainers for all levels of functioning, both day-to-day and work-related. This inevitably influences the balance between 'power with' and 'power over'. Whether it is a learned dependency or whether it is related to specific needs, it is something which cannot be ignored if genuine participation is sought. The role of the facilitator in a Client Forum then becomes extremely important in training clients who participate in the Forum to learn about the process (procedures, minutes, taking turns to speak), participation (prompt behaviour and words) and action (remind,inform,encourage to act) which should enable them to be actively empowered in the training programme.
This London-based training programme provides support in training for employment skills for people with learning difficulties and / or disabilities in a cafe and a gardening project which both serve the local and extended community and are attached to the provision. In addition there is an employment adviser assigned to clients who helps them find a real job and provides on-going support on the job until such time as they can manage independently. The training programme has just celebrated its 100th job gained by the trainees. However, before being assigned to the employment adviser, potential trainees have to join a waiting list. This is their first obstacle to employment, progress and empowerment as they may not get onto the programme for some time or they may become discouraged and drop-out. They may reach the stage of finding an employment adviser who may then feel they lack job skills. Because of all these steps in the passage to training and employment, the need of a regular support group in the form of a User forum is critical. Sometimes clients have difficulty with their adviser and if their adviser was also the Forum facilitator this could be problematic. Therefore the appointment of an external facilitator was seen by the manager as a most appropriate and fair progression.
The Aims of a Client Forum
In response to a mutually agreed rationale for establishing a User Forum which would meet regularly and an overall aim to increase communication and collaboration between service providers and service users, the external facilitator and training manager agreed on a range of objectives. These were that the User Forum would seek to:
The manager explains how members of the group can become an active part of the service by reflecting that they're starting to say, in relation to those on the waiting list, Well if you (management) can't talk to people who are sitting around waiting for ages, why cant we? At least, we can tell them how it's going, what will happen when you come in. She reflects that there are people who have been through the system, gone out, got a job and still attend the User Forum. This suggests that it has become something more for them than just a means to an end. In fact, for some, these meetings represent a focus of social life as the manager reflects that:
There aren't very many social opportunities for a lot of the clients and parents can sometimes come down on people and where they are going and what they are doing...and when parents know us and know its ok they've got a certain amount of freedom to travel and stay here.
There has also been a change in the responsiveness of members from an initial list of complaints to a range of suggestions indicating that the solidarity of group dynamics and the support of the facilitator has helped users to become more proactive. A demonstration of this proactive behaviour is the recent involvement of the Users Forum in interviewing potential new members of staff. With the facilitators help they drew up a list of questions like: Could you tell us about your most recent job. Then tell us what skills would you bring from that job and why would you bring those skills; Could you tell us what you think some of the needs may be for a person with a disability who is looking for a job? So they spent a lot of time setting the questions, understanding the issues and marking out what they think are the keywords, the buzzwords, they were talking about body language and they were making sure the applicants addressed them not the facilitator.
Listening to the Clients
The training manager noted that not all staff were equally enthusiastic about the arrival of an external facilitator because :
most of the time she is representing people who may not be happy with what's going on, so she is trying to get them to speak out and that challenges people doesn't it?
One of the ways the facilitator supported the trainees was in translating the inaccessible jargon which prevented them having access to important information. This is one of the first steps to empowerment in offering clients a fuller understanding of what was happening. This information needed to extend more widely than to the original small nucleus of the User Forum. One of the facilitators aims was to open up the Forum to all clients, whatever stage of the process they were in, to include those on waiting lists as well as those with jobs. That was achieved by scheduling the meetings to coincide with other job skills training, offering them in the daytime and evening, and by locating the meeting on a choice of two different sites. The facilitator recognised that the Forum fills small gaps about transition but it's also a place where people on the waiting list can ask questions. This reflection illustrates the sequential nature of the process of empowerment in that it requires a gradual understanding and realisation of what is available and realistic.
One of the characteristics of the power over model is that somebody in authority is constantly taking the initiative for the person with learning disabilities. This can be very helpful and not at all oppressive but it does not encourage independence of mind and initiative. This is one of the key causes for concern raised by the facilitator that new clients needed to self-refer when they felt ready rather than wait for an official referral procedure which may arrive at the wrong time in their lives. In this way the balance between power over and power with in redressed to their advantage.
One of the uncomfortable aspects of listening to clients in this kind of Forum is that they may need an expression of their frustration, disappointment and depression in the reality of the tedious work situations:
I have seen a drop-out in people working because they've come and said I'm really, really peeved off - I don't want to wash tables all day; I don't want to clean dishes all day. I want to do more... What do you think? Do you think I should jack it in? It's like the money is crap, and people have gone, Yeah... pack it in. And they've packed it in. I mean that's not the best. You know it's rubbish money and you know there is no opportunity to move on from it at all. But it is one of the things that's been good as well because it's challenging the system by saying: Well, we don't want jobs like that.
This is uncomfortable because listening to the clients also means reflecting back to them the limits of their possibilities and opportunities within the current economic climate.
Process, participation and action: the client experience
For the Chair of the User Group, who is currently employed in the gardening project, procedures are very important. For example, in one of the sessions we attended, although we started very late he insisted that break-time was at the usual time of evening. In this Forum, the Chair perceives that:
the work of the facilitator would be..., the facilitator would be there as a helper, to take notes, that kind of stuff, and write down the dates, send them out, that kind of stuff. . Usually what we do is make a list of items and go through each one in turn...I do that. I let the first person to start talking finish and then let the next one start talking, you know, to start all over again...It can be fairly difficult but sometimes it can be fairly easy and the facilitator helps.. I just learned it..T. (The facilitator) helped a fair bit..to make a list by asking if there's anything that anyone wants to talk about and, if so, just listed it and gone through...
Evidence from the Chair indicates that it was not usual procedure to follow up decisions agreed upon at the Forum with a clear action plan. In fact, the Chair reflects that even returning to issues raised at the last meeting was sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. This suggests that the degree of power which the forum has to translate ideas into actions is limited on the one hand and that, on the other hand, management may lack the resources to follow through some of the groups suggestions.
Conclusion: Where does it go from here?
The main purpose of this paper was to evaluate the way in which the Client Forum can operate as an active form of empowerment. We have shown how the manager took a decision to use an external facilitator in order to prioritise the clients views over those of the organisation. The facilitator trains the participants for empowerment by ensuring they have access to information of direct relevance to them (knowledge), by encouraging them to self-refer into appropriate jobs and skills training (initiative) and by modelling interactive and negotiating skills within the Forum (process and participation).
What was lacking in this sharing of power with the trainees was the capacity to move ideas on beyond the confines of the Forum and implement them within the training support system. To compensate for this lack, there are now plans to develop the User Forum in order to establish a strategy with set objectives to promote User involvement and to support employment rights for clients of the programme.
Warren (1999), in her analysis of the value of user groups within services, concluded her reflections by stressing the significance of the inter-connections between key personnel and users. Beyond the practical factors necessary to secure participation was the need to be responsive to adapting practices in the service. She concludes that empowerment is not about professionals 'allowing' people to act differently but is about professionals listening. This is a truism which we have engaged with in earlier research analysis (e.g. Corbett, 1996; Corbett, 1998) but which comes powerfully to the fore here. Real listening requires empathy. This has implications for the growth and direction of any service which supports vulnerable people in employment experiences which enrich rather than impoverish their quality of life.
References
Corbett, J. (1996) Bad-Mouthing: the language of special needs, London, Falmer.
Corbett, J. (1998) Voice in emancipatory research: imaginative listening, in Clough, P. & Barton, L. (Eds.) Articulating with Difficulty: research voices in Inclusive Education, London, Paul Chapman.
Dowson, S. (1997) Empowerment within Services: A Comfortable Delusion, in Ramcharan, P., Roberts, G., Grant, G. & Borland, J. (Eds.) Empowerment in Everyday Life, London, Jessica Kingsley.
Fenton, M. With Hughes, P. (1989) Passivity to Empowerment, London, RADAR.
Kitchen, R., Shirlow, P. & Shuttleworth, I. (1998) On the Margins: disabled people=s experience of employment in Donegal, West Ireland, Disability & Society, Vol. 13, No. 5, pp. 785-806.
McAnespie, B, Kitteringham, J. & Corbett, J. (2000) Vocational education and training to support the transition of young people with learning difficulties to paid employment, The Skill Journal, Issue No. 66, pp. 1-7 (research supplement).
Neath, J. & Schriner, K. (1998) Power to people with disabilities: empowerment issues in employment programmes, Disability & Society, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 217-224.
Reid, P. & Bray, A. (1998) Real jobs: the perspectives of workers with learning difficulties, Disability & Society, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 229-239.
Warren, L. (1999) Empowerment: the path to partnership? in Barnes, M. & Warren, L. (Eds.) Paths to Empowerment, Bristol, The Policy Press.
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