Going out in the dark

[madswimmer]

Happy new Year everyone!

Except it isn't for my son.

He has his own flat within a supported living setting (9 flats in total).

Carers have informed me that it is 'the rules' for health and safety that service users should not go out in the dark.

I would have thought this was discrimination?

My son has a lot activities which finish at 8pm. For half of the year, that will be in darkness.

So, he will no longer be able to attend these session as he has for the past 21 years.

Anyone shed some light on this??

[Jofisher]

I would contact the care quality commission and raise it with them as that’s totally unreasonable in my eyes

[Hidden]

The legal issue is whether your son wants to go out in the dark commensurate with his attendance at appropriate and 'safe' community sessions and events in whatever environment he chooses to participate in. The thing you raise is therefore a capacity issue in terms of his supported living and may reflect a breach of the Equality Act 2010 and therefore, discriminatory of his protected characteristic regarding disablity.

The carers. should NOT be the ones to communicate such a serious shift of emphasis to a claim to health and safety. They don't own the dark. It should be communicated in writing so that it can be challenged. Giving you a narrated verbal directive is just plain dishonest.

To exercise that level of restraint amounts to a deprivation of liberties.

They cannot say that his being in the dark is a matter of their private ownership of the flats which your son enters when he returns from the dark. Nor can they claim that your son's coming home in the dark puts anyone at risk.

If they are saying that he is at risk then they need to formalise that under a deprivation of liberty safeguarding mechanism.

They should know better.

[madswimmer in reply to Hidden]

Thank you, Parental.

Apparently the carers have all completed online 'training' which advises against supporting someone in the dark due to risk to themselves and the person they are supporting.

He has got to 34 without ever been put into any such situation!

As you state, I see this as a Deprivation of his liberties, which has not been authorised.

I see other disabled people out in the dark. But they don't have 1:1 support.

When I pushed for the name of the online training they had completed, they were vague.

I am thinking they just don't want to do the activity.

[Hidden]

On line training is intentionally available to employers in proportion to their ability to properly integrate the many social policy directives that inform LD care. There are also the clear mental capacity issues and then the more complex and less clear frameworks that arise from sociological studies and theories along with the psychological modalities that inform precepts of behaviour.

scie.org.uk/

This is the platform I would recommend to train and prepare LD workers in a non regulated care environment. In short where carers are the first bulwark of risk assessment and where the cared for are the employer by their Court of Protection Deputy. It is, however, expressly positioned to a regulated environment and it is likely the best there is.

Strengths based approach for LD needs/care met are very hard to pin down. Yet that modality of social theorising is now coming to the fore in a rampant way.

The reason for this in part has to do with the intelligence of the regulated care employer to read the wall and sense their direction based on representation and due diligence prescribed from connected but not entirely specific legal matters that have much more to do with their risk than it has to do with any plausible risk to the cared for.

The smarter like a rat the more easy the theory can be misused to speak of grandpa and grandma whilst robbing the grandchild of their natural estate in mind and body.

Insist on knowing their training modality and their accredited training standing, whilst you simultaneously open the broad side to their spectacular arrogance and disregard for the very central tenets of the law in respect of a true person centred approach to LD care.

Here's to your boy.

publications.parliament.uk/...

[InclusiveZoom]

He would be very welcome to join any of our activities - they are all on Zoom. I can send you free links for him to try. He can make friends and meet people. All our sessions are designed to be fun and build confidence, Carol x

[49Twister]

Life shouldn't stop because of the dark. My son has severe learning disabilities and has many activities that take place in the evenings. I set up a taxi account to get him home safely, most things finish at 8-9pm, occasionally later. Initially the taxi firm would invoice me monthly and I would settle the bill for him using his money, taking the stress away from him handing over money as he doesn't have capacity. Now it comes out of his budget in supported living. As you say like your son he has gone to many of these clubs etc for many years so is a huge part of his life. The whole point of support staff is to support our adult children to live the best life ( very debatable ). Can your son go out on his own or does he need staff with him? Regardless he should be able to go to activities as before, just because it's dark is not a reason to not go. It will surely affect his mental health if he doesn't go. You need to challenge this good luck.