Disability History
CDP History
Research
The Council of Disabled People Warwickshire and Coventry was founded many years ago as the Council For Disabled People in Warwick District.
14 years ago it then became a charitable organisation OF Disabled people and has developed to increase its area of operations to include the sub-region. CDP exists to promote and realise the opportunities and rights of Disabled people regardless of their age, sexuality, culture, ‘race’ or gender or refugee status.
What do we mean by the word ‘Disabled’?
As we subscribe to the 'social model' of Disability as opposed to the 'medical/individual' model we refer to anyone who has a physical and/or sensory impairment, anyone labelled as learning disabled, mental health users and/or survivors, people with HIV positive status or others with hidden impairments/long term health conditions. In essence we mean anyone who identifies as needing the support of an organisation in order to remove a barrier that may have excluded them from participating in the economic, social or political life of their community.
Why Of Disabled people rather than For Disabled people?
Charities have predominently worked towards making Disabled people recipients of care like the 'deserving poor' rather than enable them to take charge of their own destiny and actually be themselves. In order to develop and promote the ‘social model’ of Disability rather than ‘the medical/individual model’ it is more sensible to be run by those people who have a personal understanding of the experience of Disability.
To promote independence and choice – independence is a mind-set which means that you make your own choices of where you want to go, what time you want to go to bed, what you want to eat, whom you want to be friends with, where you want to work, who you want to have sex with.
Even today in 2006 Disabled people are often institutionalised and are seen as recipients of either ‘cure’ or ‘care’ and represent money in the 'disability industry'.
Recent History
Up until 2003 CDP ran a Disabled people led Direct Payments services to support people to live independently in the community with assistance.
We found that running a service which should affectively be a statutory service brought us into conflicts whilst advocating on behalf of the individual Disabled people in order to ensure they received their rights!
CDP now works within the remit of representation and advocacy, supporting, building and facilitating local forums and networks of disabled people alongside local disabled people, training, research, auditing, mentoring and employment, accessible information and web-site development and arts.
With the quasi demise of organisations of disabled people across the West Midlands region we are attempting to support and develop a regional network of disabled people and organisations in order to influence regional policy across the region to the benefit of disabled people who live in the region. Please see www.rdn.org.uk
A Brief History
In order to try and understand how attitudes and treatment towards Disabled people has developed and changed over the years it is important to have an understanding of the history of disability.
In a country in which the world-view has always been predominantly Christian, it is important to examine Biblical texts in order to discover how Disabled people are portrayed. A major part of our acquisition of social values comes from our acceptance of Biblical teachings. Though these are rarely questioned they are absorbed by many.
The radio program 'Thoughts for Today' recently quoted the following Biblical verse: "Jesus reached out to heal the paralysed man and said - Your sins are forgiven you". From the earliest of times within Christian thinking the idea of sin and disability has been linked. The implication is that disability is a punishment for our sins or the sins of our fathers. It is only by examining such myths that we can begin to question these values. Upon revolution and, with its resulting sale of labour, began the segregation of Disabled people.
Society changed from centering around working on the land to around working in factories. The machinery and technology that swept the country was designed to be operated by non-disabled people. This created a very clear dividing line between those who could contribute and those who could not. This meant that Disabled people became progressively isolated from their peers and, as the extended family gave way to the nuclear family, it became difficult for Disabled people to remain in the family environment.
The morality of Dickens’s times wanted beggars off the streets. Workhouses for the poor, asylums' for the" mad' and institutions (cripplages) for Disabled people came into being. As these institutions grew in number and size and the staffing in some areas became professionalised, they had to be maintained - thus the growth of the charity business with Its non-disabled benefactors and the consequent decline of Disabled people into a sub-section of society who required care and pity.
Then came the third stage - World War One, which had a major impact on the image of Disabled People and a conference was held at which the World Health Organisation's definition of impairment and disability was challenged. It was made clear that Disabled people's restricted participation in society is a socially created barrier - not the result of physical limitations or impairments as stated by the World Health Organisation.
Defining disability in this way became known as The Social Model of Disability. Clearly this definition has major implications for society and the changes required. The Social Model, rather than viewing disability as a 'welfare' issue, sees it as a 'civil rights' issue and highlights prejudice, discrimination and oppression.
Links:
Disability Timeline
Courtesy of Pete Millington, Editor & Researcher. Disability West Midlands
Center for Independent Living
http://www.cilberkeley.org/history.htm
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Page Last Updated on July 4, 2006