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1. Letter

This is my first ever letter to national newspaper. I want to raise a

topic that I have not seen aired in any paper or on television.

I manage a children’s therapy department in a London hospital and

I meet a lot of families whose baby or young child has some

degree of brain damage. The children often have cerebral palsy

and might also have learning difficulties, sight loss and hearing loss.

We help children develop and at the same time try to support

parents to become confident in bringing up their children.

Not many years ago, children like this might have been put into

institutions. This still happens in many countries but in the UK we

believe children are better staying with their families. This move

from institutional care has coincided with progress in medical

technology so that more brain-damaged children survive.

It is my view that in closing institutions we have won only half

the battle because we have put many families under severe stress.

Some parents struggle to care for their child - becoming

exhausted, sleep-deprived and socially isolated. Keeping a job and

going on holiday can become impossible. Parental relationships

often reach breaking point. All of this impacts on the mental

health of parents, siblings and sometimes grandparents.

No one wants to see children back in institutions. But I feel the

social reform is not complete until we can give effective support

to families̶̶̶, support that recognises the rights of the child and

family to the best possible quality of life. The UK has closed most

of the institutions but not yet made effective family support

generally available. There is a lot of work still to do.

2. Affection

My guide on this first visit was a lady of the village

outside the institution, an established volunteer, she

said.

As we walked around some inmates came for a hug

or to hold hands.

The story is that mentally handicapped people are

always affectionate, but it is not true.

Children, women and men incarcerated in these

places are starved of love and warm human contact,

that is all.

Those who are able will approach a new face and get

what they can in a short time.

Their smile though might not be what it seems.

Smiling is a useful defence vulnerable people can use

to neutralise a threat, to win over someone who

could mean danger.

‘Boys and girls are kept separate’, my guide explained

as we passed some of the wards. ‘It saves a lot of

problems. But they can mix at the Christmas Dance’.

She apologised because she should have said men and

women, not boys and girls.

On our way to the recreation centre, she spotted a

tent and wanted to show me the camping activity.

There was just one small tent.

She pulled back the flap so we could both see inside.

The three men might have been referred to as boys

but their erections were manful.

They were having a great time.

She closed the flap quickly. We walked on,

neither of us mentioning what we had just seen.

3. Magic

She knew she was failing as an art therapist.

Should she return the twelve-month grant to the arts association?

Trundling an old pram full of paper and paints from ward to ward

around Bleakhouse Hall seemed pointless.

Neither the inmates nor the staff showed much interest and she had

nowhere to display work.

Then a sympathetic nurse told her about an unused shed across the

field. They both went to have a look.

It was a perfect space, much more than a shed. There was a large room,

kitchen and toilets! It had been used for staff training at one time. She

was given permission to use it.

The shed soon became a thriving Arts Kitchen with an ever-growing

giant mural, papier maché heads modelled on balloons, hand and

footprints in plaster, a zoo of cardboard animals and a gallery of self-

portraits.

A volunteer cook had eager inmates helping to make free cakes and

biscuits. A few of those who could walk brought some of the more

disabled people whom she had met on the wards. Interested staff

dropped in between shifts.

Some months later she began worrying about how she could justify this

project as valid art therapy in her end-of-year report. She was

determined to continue the work and hoped for a second grant.

She decided after much thought not to theorise about colour and

emotions, about the psychological benefits of hands in clay and dough,

about art therapy as treatment for mental disorder.

None of that fitted the Arts Kitchen.

She decided instead to use photographs she had taken of inmates helping

clean and organise the shed, of women and men totally engrossed in

studio activity, of groups around the café tables out on the grass with

card, plasticene and picture books.

She would report people’s comments and talk of the magic that was

conjured up from a mix of new ideas, enthusiastic helpers, benign

administrators and people willing to create, cook, work, play, eat and

learn together.

Perhaps that is art therapy for Bleakhouse Hall.

4. Rights

What term shall we use

for people we have put away,

rejected, banished?

If we imagine them in hospital

with doctors and nurses

we can call them patients.

If we prefer to think of them

in homes or hostels,

they could be residents.

Locked away against their will,

prisoners would be apt except

they are not guilty of crimes.

Recognising they are, in fact,

in institutions, we can refer to

them just as inmates.

We could think of them as

people. But then we would have

to consider their human rights.