Scotland: National Rural Network
Connecting Rural Scotland - Promoting Rural Growth

By Linda McLean, ARAC

We are setting up an Empowerment Centre which offers greater scope for personal fulfilment than past models. An Empowerment Centre is a place where knowledge and information can be exchanged to the benefit of the whole community.

Where ARAC differs

Disabled groups were never set up to become independent organisations that earn a significant income. That simple fact alone encourages user led groups into a dependency trap, where outside bodies have the financial power to grant or withhold funding.

What is proposed here is that disability groups collaborate, cooperate and share their knowledge, which many have developed on a very specialist scale. This would involve the recognition of the vast amount of knowledge disabled people have, their wide range of skills and their willingness to fight their corner.

With the establishment of a healthful, invigorating environment, it would be mentally stimulating to the disabled individual. A house would have a lovely setting, thoughtfully and sensitively adapted, to allow maximum freedom.

With courage and the ability, an umbrella group will have strong business orientation. It would be multi-purpose, with strong lobbying and advocacy powers. The Empowerment Centre would have autonomous components delivering education, training, employment, and housing and benefits services.

ARAC'S Long Term View

A facility is required, where users and health professionals can share their knowledge and expertise. It would:

• Provide housing for disabled people
• Assist the Health Service with bed -blocking
• Provide a template for Social Inclusion and Equal Opportunities
• Provide education in a wide range of skills in a centre of excellence
• Promote Care in the Community
• Empower both the users and the carers
• Act as a base for knowledge transfer
• Develop a strategy for the sympathetic use of older buildings
• Preserve and develop trade/apprenticeship skills required in construction
• Act as a model for others to follow

There are many factors requiring to be addressed in our community. We can only start at the beginning. The issue of providing housing and care for disabled people is the main thrust of this proposal. As such it would involve a very diverse group from planners, engineers and builders to social workers, NHS, young people and the unemployed.

This diverse workforce would create a unique environment, in partnership with disabled people. Direction is essential, and learning how to work together would be an advantage for everybody.

This project would, in the longer term:

• Decrease vandalism by fully engaging young people. An active, engaged community costs much less than a destructive careless one
• Restore a sense of self-worth and confidence to youngsters
• Teach skills which will be useful in later life, and which in turn could be passed on
• Give an incentive to care for others

• Allow young people and their elders to get to know each other, which is essential for beneficial relationships to develop

ARAC dares to go where no-one has gone before

By filming and recording the achievements of a few, we could go on to inspire many, in this country and abroad.

The springboard is ready for this:

ADVENTUROUS REMARKABLE AUDACIOUS CHALLENGE.

More information

Linda trained in Nursing in the 1970’s and, after working extensively in both Renal Medicine and Intensive Care, achieved the rank of Ward Sister in an Orthopaedic hospital. The ward specialised in the more complex spinal operations, such as lumbar and cervical osteotomies, and teaching formed an important part of her role. Patients came from as far afield as the Arab Emirates, so culture and diversity were a necessary part of Nurse Education.

She has fifteen years experience in Community Care, writing one of the first Community Care Plans in Scotland. The last five of these years were as a Care Coordinator.  In this role she developed a project which delivered care and accommodation to a severely disabled and ventilated patient, assisting with the development of High Dependency/Intensive Care in the Community model.

For more information contact Linda McLean at aracml15sp@hotmail.com.

 ©L. J. McLean