Bit of a gap in posts for various reasons, none of which relate to LB. For once. Anyway, LB’s life is currently reflecting Candy Crush. Groundhog day at level 125. [Yes you Candy Crushers, suck it up.. it’s a therapeutic tool for me at the mo’ and getting to 125 has taken many, many night time/early morning hours. And I’m STUCK]. The choice offering is interfering in LB’s (non) school attendance. Decisions made in the weekly community team meeting about going to the farm to work are sunk by him being given the option to say ‘no’. So he’s been unit-bound since the buffet lunch last Sunday.

Not a big surprise really. Give any teenager the choice of school/work or doss off, most would choose the latter. But most teenagers aren’t offered that choice. And most would eventually realise that they have to do something productive. The adult space opening to LB is looking alarmingly like a version of day-centre-life.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned an article about an Oxford based learning disabled man’s (Rob?) long term experience of a day centre that was in a Sunday mag years ago. Rob? said if they finished their task of sorting screws (or whatever it was) before the end of the session (probably around 3pm), the staff tipped the trays out so they could start again.  The futility of this activity was piercing. The article could have been (I wasn’t as up to speed in those days) heralding the increase in self-advocacy groups and advent of direct payments as I think Rob? went on to be an early member of My Life My Choice. These developments were great but we all know (well those of us who look at reality rather than the rhetoric *cough cough*) that this shift has been largely superficial. There are the lucky few  who have fallen into an exceptional (but still cash strapped) social enterprise or individual setting. Most are unemployed, unfulfilling any potential they have. Eh, what’s that? Remploy? How many ex-Remploy employees have found new jobs? Naw, let’s not go there…*

I think introducing choice has erased discipline for young dudes like LB. The number of injunctions he took out against the dishwasher, as his allocated family task, was hilarious, but the job got done. School similarly have been easing sixth-formers into working environments, trying to help them understand that work is a part of life. But once you take that discipline away, you’re left with yawning space to fill. With DVDs, trips to the shops or fast food restaurants and hanging around.

That’s it for now, really. Unless anyone has any hints about cracking level 125 ?

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/23/remploy-workers-new-jobs-labour