In case you missed it: Community makes Windarring work

By Andrew McKenna

“I really like believing in what I do and I can see the differences being made. I can see someone camping in the bush for the first time and see their face … there’s days when I feel frustrated, and days when I feel I’ve achieved a lot. It fits in with my personal philosophy about equity and justice and it’s a way of contributing to that.”

***

Sue Readman works in Complex Communication Needs at Castlemaine’s Windarring, and has been working with people with disabilities for about twenty-five years. She’s worked further afield, Kyneton, Perth, London, but believe it or not, Castlemaine is possibly leading the world in the work they are doing in Barker Street and around town.

David Silvagni.

Windarring Adult Support Services was set up in Kyneton in 1980, and celebrated its tenth Castlemaine birthday last year. In the early days, people with disabilities travelled from the Grampians, Heathcote and all over Mt Alexander Shire to their placements in Kyneton. David Silvagni has worked there from the early days, and in the late 80s he said a welfare student undertaking a placement at Windarring launched a feasibility study into extending the service to Castlemaine. The study found there was a need, and the service could work here.

Most of the “participants” from Castlemaine were at the time travelling out of the shire for some of the activities they now do here. David and the other staff at Windarring refer to the people they work with as “participants”, as it’s their choice to be involved. “Choice” is a huge part now not only of government rhetoric, but in on-the-ground practice.

“We set up in 1999 in a house in Forest Street,” David said.

“We envisaged the maximum to be twenty-five participants; we now have thirty-two and the demand is increasing.”

Participants live in Mt Alexander Shire, at home with their parents or semi-independently with social support. Windarring staff give assistance with banking, shopping, meals and other aspects of life many of us take for granted.

Some participants also live in aged care facilities and hostels in this shire. While the government has had a focus on moving young people out of those kinds of facilities and putting them into community settings, that has mostly been for those with acquired brain injuries. It can leave people with other disabilities, often congenital, stranded.

The service outgrew its original Forest Street building, and the next building they chose, where Windarring is currently located, was then an auto electrician’s and exhaust centre. It fitted the bill perfectly as it was close to town, allowing for the all-important “community inclusiveness”.

DHS bought the building, gutted it and purpose-designed it for adult learning.

“A lot of our programs are community-based, here or nearby, and we’re starting to outgrow this building,” David said.

“There’s exciting stuff happening at the moment.”

David massages support worker Chris.

While I was talking to David, I noticed a plastic shovel on his desk labelled “Vomit scooper and blood spills kit”. I’m not sure if it was a joke, but it seems to take a certain attitude, mettle and person to work in this area. The rewards seem to be enormous, but the difficulties and frustrations, as well, are likely to be huge.

***

Victoria’s State Disability Plan was introduced in 2002 and it states that by 2012, everyone with a disability will be fully engaged in the community. The mechanics have been widely put in place, with raised docks for trams and trains and hearing loops installed in many buildings. But the work of organisations like Windarring is at the forefront of changing attitudes in the wider community. It’s all well to havethe hardware, but community attitudes need to change as well.

“Probably the biggest thing in our service is inclusiveness and choice,” David said.

“People can make choices where they want to go, where they want to live, who they want to be with. Formerly each person would have been told where to go, now they have a choice where they want to go and they can look around. With consultation with their support workers they can make that choice.”

Paul on the guillotine cutting paper for the shredder, which is sold for packaging and to animal breeders. Paul wants to open his own gym and set up a health and fitness centre.

He cites the case of one young woman who was living in Bendigo, who saw a GP in Castlemaine. She decided she wanted to attend Windarring so she did for a while. But eventually she missed her friends and went back to Bendigo. No big deal for many of us, but for a person with a disability an enormous leap and a great sense of freedom and self-empowerment.

“(Participants) have personal life plans, it’s part of the Disability Act that people have to have plans,” he said.

“What that means is that the person sits down and the support worker asks them questions, what they would like to do in three months, one year, five years.

“It’s a plan and we have to try and assist that person in achieving those goals. That will determine their activities. One person may want to sing, and the choir was set up under the auspices of the Community House. They get to choose. Each individual’s plan says each person has the right to make a decision.”

The Peace Choir is a mixture of singers from Windarring and the wider community.

The Peace Choir was established last year, and performed at the Botanical Gardens during the State Festival and for Christmas at the UC Hall in Castlemaine. Windarring offers other programs as well: swimming, a gym program, cooking.

“The only way to set that up in the old days was to set it all up here,” David said.

“With assistance from staff the participants now go to the local gym, with a particular program set up there for them. They help with meal preparation. We look at their skills and individual needs and help them develop skills.

Preparing chicken and vegetable sausage rolls and noodles in the kitchen: Glyn Prosser, Ken Curran, Marlene Jeffrey, Claire Stokes.

“The participants will prepare meals – maybe not the whole task but at least part of it. Opening a can, using a can opener, emptying it into a saucepan and heating it and you have a meal. Some may not handle a can opener, so there are flip top cans. Some may have trouble with tying shoelaces, so you look at Velcro or slip on shoes.”

While Windarring participants do have access to the Castlemaine community, David says they take care not to be “too invasive”.

“There is still an awareness and a barrier to break down. If we’re too invasive people are less tolerant. We try to (remain) a minority so we are accepted. They have great rapport with the cafes, gym, the pool. Some of them even go to the local pub to play pool, so after hours they will understand it better.”

Some participants do not communicate easily, so they use sign language, symbols, flashcards. Sue Readman and other support workers have worked hard at building rapport with shopkeepers to make the communication process work. Participants with communication challenges use non-verbal options. They can pull out a flashcard showing what they want at a café, or play a recorded message of their choice, to initiate conversation.

“It recognises each person as a person in their own right, rather than as an appendage of their support worker,” Sue said.

“It’s not actually that different what people are using to communicate. They’re using other forms of communication more frequently.

“It’s better for their own empowerment. Also they get what they would like, rather than the support worker choosing a cappuccino, which they had yesterday.

“Try and communicate directly with the participants. Staff are there for back up. Try and think outside the box.

“It makes them feel better about themselves. It helps the community interact directly with them. Most staff in Castlemaine want to do the right thing and we make it easy for them.”

Tegwen Prest making jewellery.

***

Windarring’s work is largely about advocacy, giving a voice to marginalised and powerless people who can be easily disadvantaged and taken advantage of.

“If we can get them to express their needs and wants that’s what it’s about – choice,” says David Silvagni.

“I just like giving people with disabilities choices. Basically it’s seeing the participants reach their goals and being part of their local community.”

He says most of the participants’ families have been part of the shire for years, which makes it easier for Windarring to be accepted into the community, getting people into clubs and finding them work experience.

Charles and support worker Julie in the ceramics room.

Others come from newer arrivals to Castlemaine, from Melbourne or elsewhere and are used to the services in the suburbs. They are often impressed with what’s here.

“Having people out in the community and being seen breaks down a lot of barriers, (but) there’s still a long way to go.

“The cafes have been great. They support us, and not only do they accept us but they give back through fundraisers. They sponsored our tenth birthday. The businesses we support, support us. It’s not tokenistic.”

Jo Stubbings, support worker Steve Walter and John McQueen ("Johnno"): “I’m a bank robber”.

Castlemaine Copy Centre was federally funded, and it supports Windarring’s Work Support Program. It is soon to have a revamped retail outlet offering Windarring products such as personalised cards, a range of incense, furniture polish, hand made paper, participants’ artworks. Each artist will get 90% of the retail value of their work sold, while Windarring takes a small commission. There will be a woodwork section as well and the maker will be paid for what is sold. Participants’ art has been exhibited at the State and Fringe festivals, and they have a strong performance and visual arts component at Windarring. The Democratic Set performed at last year’s State Festival featured seven actors from Windarring, and when I visited the playgroup was reading through their lines.

Health and fitness, the Healthy Heart Walk where they tie in with CHIRP, ten pin bowling, swimming, bushwalking and indoor sports. IT, education, games, emails, chatlines with other services, Powerpoint presentations. A ceramics and woodworking studio. A big bicycle rack with well used bikes. The Windarring band is the Blackouts, they have cut their own CD and do 15-18 gigs a year. They performed at last year’s Fringe to a bumper crowd.

David says they can’t fulfill everybody’s goals and dreams to the nth degree because of staffing levels, but what organisation can? Windarring has reached out to the community for volunteers.

“The Lawn Tennis Club has had a Come and Try Day, with a ‘buddy-up’ system with tennis players, they can build up friendships,” he said.

Windarring is also looking for piecework for participants – not the bad old days of the sheltered workshop with industrial-based programs – but something useful to get participants out and into the community and to experience the workplace.

The benefits of being in a town the size of Castlemaine are huge.

“Community is what makes it work,” says Sue Readman.

“There are always links that make it more possible. I think Australia has less of a mess to clean up because England historically had institutions.”

“Bedlam” is not just an adjective for uproar and confusion, it is a noun for an institution that once existed in London.

Sue Readman with flashcards.

“We’ve come into the picture a bit further through the timescale and I think Australia’s doing really well.

“I think communication taps into so many areas of someone’s life. It’s a lynchpin in all activities in all our lives.

“If we get that right we’ve gone a long way in so many different areas of improving someone’s life.”