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Archive for January 19th, 2011

First Published Thursday, 28 May 2009


Topper Regatta

Published Date: 28 May 2009


A PUPIL from Anthony Gell School in Wirksworth has received his County Sailing Colours after becoming the Derbyshire Youth Sailing Champion.


Ben Crossdale, 16, has been sailing for five years, has sailed Topper dinghies at national and regional events and been part of the RYH North Zone squad and national JDP squad.


Those events have seen him sail on the North Sea as well as off the Welsh and south coasts and at reservoirs across the UK.


SUCCESS: Ben is pictured with his parents, headteacher David Baker and teaching assistants Carol Harrison and Cheryl Gaskin.


The youngster, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, explained how the sport enables him to relax.

He said: “When I was 13, I was diagnosed with autism and because sailing helps me to relax, I have found that I can cope with other aspects of my life.”


“Sailing makes me feel free and gives me confidence. I have made lots of friends at the sailing club and have become stronger both physically and mentally. I am now sailing a Laser Rooster 8.1 which has a sail three times the size of the Topper.”


Ben has been an active member of Derbyshire Youth Sailing for several years and in 2008, in his Laser Dinghy, he became the Derbyshire Youth Sailing County Champion by gaining the best overall result in the ten event series around all of the Derbyshire sailing clubs.


This year his aim is to defend the championship and to become a qualified dinghy instructor and to help teams from Ogston Sailing Club to support the charity Sail 4 Cancer by competing in the Southport youth 12-hour race in June and the senior 24-hour race in September.


His headteacher, David Baker, was thrilled with Ben’s success:


He said: “Ben is a charming young man who has shown great determination and perseverance to do so well in such a tough sport.We are very proud of what he has achieved.”


Source:   http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/sport/Champion-sailor-Ben-gets-County.5306980.jp



First Published Friday, 29 May 2009


 

By Dean Beadle


Dean Beadle is a nineteen year old young adult with Asperger’s Syndrome. He tours the UK giving speeches at conferences and events and writes a regular column at The Autism File.


At the vast majority of conferences and events I speak at, there is a scheduled question and answer session, in which members of the audience can ask me whatever they want: “What is your sleep pattern like?”, “Are you concerned about looking for a relationship?”, “Do you have any friends?” etc. The list is endless. But there is one question that crops up quite a lot, a query that all people affected by Asperger’s Syndrome ponder the world over. “If you could stop having Asperger’s, would you?” It’s a question that is always fairly difficult to answer, and it requires a lot of inward thinking to provide an honest response …


At the age of eleven, I remember looking around the playground at secondary school and thinking that I was an outcast: I was the only person with Asperger’s. This feeling cut me like a knife. I was certain that I’d never fit in. I’d look at the thousands of kids who were coping with life brilliantly and I’d envy them. I won’t lie; I looked at them and wondered if the grass was greener on the other side. Perhaps if I was neurotypical life would be easier? Perhaps if I was like everyone else I wouldn’t find socialising so challenging? Perhaps if I didn’t have Asperger’s all of my problems would miraculously disappear? I was wrong.


Just this week I was out with two friends and, just for a moment, I watched them talking to each other. They were effortlessly socialising in a way that I can only dream of. I, on the other hand, am always panicking under the surface that I will make a mistake. Social blunders are my forte. I always manage to say the wrong thing, and I am my own worst critic, and I spend eons assessing my social performance: “Did I dominate the conversation?”, “Did I say the wrong thing?” This can make socialising incredibly stressful. Some would say I wouldn’t have to endure all of this if I didn’t have Asperger’s. They’d probably be right, but that still doesn’t make me want to change it and it certainly doesn’t make me hopeful for some mystical miracle cure.


I sometimes envy my friends, as they talk about who they fancy or who they have feelings for. I listen to them and I hope some of it will rub off on me. I’m not jealous of their ability to have feelings for people, as I have no problem in that area, I am jealous of the fact that they are so secure in their sexuality. It’s set in stone for them, they know what they like and they are confident in that. That isn’t so easy for me; I easily muddle my emotions and in moments of confusion, I find it incredibly difficult to know who I fancy. I am an expert in whipping myself up into a frenzied state over minimal issues that most people would overlook. In those moments I wish I was more like neurotypical people. I wish that things were simpler. But I never wish that I wasn’t on the autism spectrum.


Therefore you can imagine my annoyance when I read headlines like “Let’s beat autism” and “We can defeat Asperger’s”. These conditions aren’t terminal diseases. Autism isn’t the enemy. It irritates me when I hear people talking about Asperger’s and autism as though they are some sort of epidemic that pills can cure. Asperger’s and autism are an intrinsic part of the person that has them. Yes, they can make life difficult. And, as I have said, they have made life an uphill struggle for me. But that does not mean that I wish to be anything else: I am well aware that Asperger’s is a huge part of who I am, and I wouldn’t be me without it. It’s an incredibly important part of my individuality.


I fully empathise with parents who wonder “Why me?” on the fateful day that they discover their child is on the spectrum, because I felt the same myself for a time. But I quickly snapped out of it, when I realised that nobody in the world was ‘normal’. It’s important that we remember that it’s our differences that give us our unique personalities. The world would be a grey and dull place if it wasn’t for those eccentricities and idiosyncrasies.


We should endeavour to work with autism, not against it. Together, we should persevere to develop the strategies and techniques that will make the world a more positive and manageable place for people on the spectrum. I am not saying that life will be a bed of roses; I know that there will always be issues and problems that will make my life a struggle, but I take courage in the knowledge that I will get through them by formulating strategies and coping mechanisms.


It concerns me that, by focussing on the negatives of ASD so intensely, we are overlooking all of the wonderful, positive aspects that the condition brings. In my opinion, there is a multitude of strengths that come with the condition that could be an asset to the individual if they were developed and accentuated. The more we obsess about a cure for ASD, the more we make people with autism feel like they are the proverbial ‘alien in the playground’. By fixating on eradicating the condition, the more we make those who have it feel abnormal and undervalued. How can we encourage people with autism to think of themselves in a positive way, if we are constantly talking down their condition? My life turned around the very day that I started to view my condition in a positive way.


So, when I am standing at the conference lectern, with the audience member awaiting the answer to their question, I bear all of this in mind, smile, and I say what I truly feel: “Yes, I have my difficult days, and yes, having this condition has made my life much harder. But even in light of that, I wouldn’t change it for the world …”


Source: The Autism File – Issue 31 2009


 

comments (2)

1. Lisa Webster left…


Sunday, 19 September 2010 6:19 pm

Hi Dean, My friend attended the NAS conference in York on Friday & said you were amazing & very inspirational. Could i ask your advice? My son is 7 years old and has Aspergers syndrome. He has high anxierty & lots of worries. He loves life & we love him to bits. I just worry that he always has so much on his mind and worries terribly about, it seems, everything. We do worry time every night, he has a worry box in his head so he can lock them away in the day. We make up funny rhymes & use his obsessions to try & distract him. We use calming sequences too. I’m trying to get him a sensory assessment & looking to start doing some social skills training with him at home because their just isn’t anything available to help. Is their anything else I could do? Many thanks & kind regards. Lisa.



First Published Sunday, 31 May 2009



Anders Birch


‘We know we all have that twist’: Thomas Jacobsen, 27, says that working at Specialisterne has helped him learn how to deal with social situations


A pioneering company in Denmark is giving people with autism the chance to apply their skills to jobs from IT to product testing. The result is a huge success that’s about to be rolled out across Europe. Founder Thorkil Sonne tells Michael Booth how his workforce’s superhuman recall and unflinching focus could teach the rest of us a thing or two.


Thorkil Sonne and his wife already had two sons when their third, Lars, arrived in 1997, so they had plenty of experience of the behavioural quirks of growing youngsters. But as Lars entered kindergarten aged two-and-a-half, the couple began to notice a more troubling change. Lars wouldn’t play with the other children, preferring to sit alone for hours on end. He began to talk less and less, until he was virtually unable to engage in any kind of dialogue at all. Something was clearly very wrong.


“We were patient,” says Sonne. “Our older boys had taught us that each child has their pace at which they climb the ladder, but Lars seemed to be stuck on a step.” The Sonnes are Danes and, fortunately, the Danish education system is good at diagnosing childhood developmental problems. Unfortunately in Lars’s case, the diagnosis was childhood autism.


“It was scary. The first phase was denial: ‘I’ve known my child for three years, you’ve only met him for two months. Don’t come and tell me he has an incurable, life-long disability!’ Then you have a bad conscience; you remember the situations where you’ve tried to use traditional means of raising kids and they didn’t work. But it didn’t take long, reading the literature, to realise it was describing Lars to the letter and, after time, we realised that Lars was still our happy, caring boy; we just had to get to learn about his world.”


Most parents, upon learning their child has a condition like this, will read up on it, learn about the treatments, therapies and consequences and start planning for the future. Sonne went somewhat further. He became involved with his local autistic society, ending up as vice-chairman of a housing facility for people with Asperger’s syndrome, a type of autism that affects social imagination, interaction and communication. Through the housing association, he got to know an 18-year-old Asperger’s sufferer who was especially gifted with computers. “He had retired on a state pension,” says Sonne. “But I thought that was so unfair as he had valuable IT skills that I could see would be useful for software- testing, support monitoring, programming and so on.”


So, in 2004, Sonne left his job of 15 years at the Danish communications company TDC, remortgaged his house, and founded a company, Specialisterne (The Specialists), to find employment for adults with autism and Asperger’s as software and systems testers. The 18-year-old Sonne had met through the housing association was his first employee.


Five years on, Specialisterne employs 60 people, has a turnover of almost £2m, and works with Microsoft (it tested Windows XP Media Center) and CSC, among other major international companies, helping them to check information systems, databases and other highly demanding, often repetitive, number-crunching tasks. Specialisterne has won numerous business and industry awards, and now has two offices in Denmark. If current plans pan out, a new branch will open in Glasgow later this year. It is a shining model of how to turn a highly skilled yet misunderstood and underexploited element of the population – around one per cent have a diagnosis of autism, but other related “invisible disabilities”, such as ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) for instance, may account for as much as 3.5 per cent of the population – into productive and integrated members of the workforce.


I am sitting with Sonne, a quietly spoken, rather studious man in his late forties, in his well-ordered office in a hi-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Copenhagen. As we talk about his son’s condition, he plucks a piece of paper from a filing cabinet. It’s a drawing his son made following a family holiday in southern Europe. I peer at the curious pyramidal temple of squares and numbers, trying to make sense of it. “It’s Europe!” I realise after a few moments. “But what are the numbers?” Sonne produces a photocopy of the schematic contents page from his European road atlas, the atlas they used on the journey south. His son had reproduced it entirely from memory. “I’ve tried to find a single mistake, but I can’t,” Sonne says, still amazed by his son’s memory.


It’s a powerful illustration of the incredible, verging on superhuman, attention to detail, recall and unflinching ‘ focus many autistic people have, whether expressed in architectural terms (as in Stephen Wiltshire’s work – he can draw a landscape after seeing it once); linguistic (autistic author Daniel Tammet is said to have learnt Icelandic in a week); or, as is the case with many of Sonne’s employees, numerical.


“There are so many different types of phones and services to be tested,” Sonne explains. “And the work is very repetitive but requires full attention all the time. Most companies use students or outsource to India or wherever. The first couple of tests they’ll do will be fine, but by the sixth, their attention wanes and it will always be the last test that’s the most important.” Aspergerians, on the other hand, relish the repetition, their focus doesn’t waver and their numerical skills are superlative. “My staff are motivated all the time. Our fault rate was 0.5 per cent, compared with five per cent from other testers. That’s an improvement by a factor of 10, which is why we can charge market rates. This is not cheap labour and it’s not occupational therapy. We simply do a better job.”


From the start, Sonne was clear that the company would operate under market conditions, and turn a profit, which made it virtually impossible to apply for government or EU support (“They just want people who will spend their money”). But, oblivious to the economic downturn, Specialisterne continues to pick up new clients largely by word of mouth. Organisations in more than 50 countries have approached Sonne to explore the idea of starting similar projects, with Norway and Switzerland likely to follow soon.


“I knew that the autistic people I met had dreams and ambitions, personalities and motivation,” he continues. “The trick was to create an environment that supported them. If you think of a high wire, suspended between two buildings, you aren’t going to take a chance and walk across it, even with a net. But if the wire was just a metre off the ground, you might try. It’s the same with our company. We created stable ground for autistic people to walk on and I see them develop self confidence and open up to new things as a result.”


Leading UK software-testing consultant Stephen Allott of ElectroMind has been acting as an unpaid adviser to Specialisterne as the company prepares to enter the UK market where, currently, only about six per cent of people with autism are in full-time employment. He is very clear on the advantages of using them: “Simply, they are better, faster and do higher-quality work than the people we can currently get from the labour market in the UK or India,” he says. “One of their guys can read a technical document the size of a book and spot inconsistencies between something on page three and page 37, which is incredibly useful. I already have clients in the UK who are interested in what they have to offer. The only thing we need to be careful about is their working environment. I know lots of companies with noisy, chaotic, open-plan offices, where the work is like fire-fighting most of the time, and people from Specialisterne wouldn’t be able to work there. That said, the environment they need is the kind of environment we should all be working in anyway.”


Remarkably, about 70 per cent of Specialisterne’s employees are stationed in client premises. I asked Sonne how easy it is for them to fit in with other working environments. “We create virtual Specialisterne environments in our clients’ offices. Everyone who will be in contact with our consultants is briefed about the conditions they require. They have to be nice to our people, avoid stressing them. In Denmark, we use a lot of irony and sarcasm, but people with autism can’t decode that. We make sure that the clients know how important it is to be direct, to outline tasks precisely and to stick to routines, particularly if any queries arise.”


“That’s how you avoid an ‘I only fly with Qantas’ freak-out?” I blurt. “Yes,” says Sonne. “We’ve never had a ‘freak-out’. In fact, saying what you mean, meaning what you say, being nice, avoiding stress are all good things in general for companies to take on board. Many have said to us that having one of our consultants has softened the atmosphere.”


It must actually be a relief to work with colleagues for whom office politics, backbiting and bitchiness are anathema. “Yes, they are a happy and loyal group, no one ever talks badly about anyone else. It’s nice to work with people who are honest, without filters. In fact I am working on a new management technique based on our experience with working conditions that are more open and direct.”


This doesn’t mean there aren’t misunderstandings from time to time. “One of our consultants was working in an office where they introduced a free fruit basket. He went straight up and took a whole bunch of bananas back to his desk. Someone had to explain that it was expected to take perhaps one or two pieces of fruit a day, and then he got it.”


It also doesn’t mean that Specialisterne’s workforce – 90 per cent of whom are male – are somehow robotic and unfeeling. “Oh no, in fact we have two employees who met at the company and are now engaged. Many socialise at the weekends and go out in Copenhagen together.”


Sonne introduced me to one of his colleagues, Thomas Jacobsen, 27. Jacobsen’s autism wasn’t diagnosed until he was in his twenties and, meeting him, you can understand why. There is a slight social awkwardness (though probably little more than you would experience with anyone confronted by an inquisitive journalist), and nothing to alert you to the fact he has endured lengthy periods of depression in his life.


“I wouldn’t say it was a relief, but it was nice to have a name for it, for my problem,” he told me of his diagnosis. “Actually, I don’t call it a problem, I call it a twist. Before, I felt I was different because I wasn’t very social, I preferred being on my own and had lots of special interests: earthquakes, tsunamis, geography, GNPs…” GNPs? “Yes, you know, the gross national product of different countries. Since I started work here, I have learnt to cope better with social interaction,


I haven’t had a depression in two-and-a-half years. I am getting more involved in bringing new ideas to the company and am part of shaping the Specialisterne Foundation [responsible for rolling out the concept to other countries]. You do have to have the right environment for people with Asperger’s to function – there needs to be an acceptance that I am special, that I might not work regular hours, that I might have down periods – but if you have that in place, we can do any job.”


Most Specialisterne employees tend to work 20- to 25-hour weeks, but Jacobsen has brought his hours up to 35. “You really blossom here. I see it with so many Aspergerians who join the company and get proper training. I have a lot of friends at the company now, and we socialise and go out together in town. We know we all have that twist.”


I begin to wonder about all those other, less number-oriented skills that about 30 per cent of higher-achieving Asperger’s sufferers display (to the extent that I rather wince to use the word “sufferer”). With a little lateral thinking, where else might fulfilling, productive roles be found for them in society? “Well, I would be very confident to know there were autistic people running air-traffic control towers,” says Sonne. “In any company, at least one to five per cent of all tasks would fit well with the skills of people with autism. This could apply to recognition patterns in the medical industry, to accounting, to banks? Of course, some experts have identified autistic traits in people such as Mozart, Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein. If they were alive today, perhaps they would be recognised as having Asperger’s, and look at what they achieved. Unfortunately, there is such an emphasis on being a team player and social skills in the workplace that there is still this resistance. But why do we all have to be like that? There should be room for other kinds of behaviour.


“My company is a showcase, but my end game is to get one million specialist people into meaningful work by providing a management model for large corporations to become attractive to people with special needs, so they know that they will be understood and supported. You know, in the UK you spend £12bn a year on the half-a-million Brits with autism. Why not get them earning that for the economy instead?”


Sonne’s hopes for his son must have changed radically from that first diagnosis, nine years ago. “Well, he can work here, but only if he wants to. He’s approaching some interesting times now as a teenager, but he is the nicest, most gentle and caring child you could imagine. It’s a pity to think he might be bullied in society because of his way of being.”


Source:   http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/better-faster-and-no-office-politics-the-company-with-the-autistic-specialists-1693057.html



First Published Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Position Available

A SUPPORT services organisation is calling on anyone interested in a career in support work to attend a recruitment open day in Swindon.


The open day is being organised by REACH Supported Living, a member of the south Wales-based Seren Group, which aims to support people to live independent, fulfilled lives.


REACH will be providing new support services for people who are labelled as challenging or on the autistic spectrum in the Swindon area and is looking to employ up to 60 people on both a full and part-time basis.


Seren Group’s head of human resources, Maxine Wiseman, said: “Despite the current economic climate, there is still a real need for good support workers.


“What’s more, we give excellent training so the positions may be suitable for people who are out of work as a result of the recession and looking for a career change.


“The benefit of attending an open day like this is that potential candidates will have the opportunity to ask any questions they have about the work in an informal environment.


“We are also hoping to conduct mini-interviews so people will know if they have been shortlisted by the time they leave.”


The event will take place on April 2 with presentations at 10am, noon, 1.30pm and 3pm at the Pilgrim Centre, Regent Circus. Visit www.seren-group.co.uk for details


Source:   http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/4247571.Chance_to_train_as_a_support_worker/



First Published Wednesday, 1 April 2009


Autism Art

By Lorraine Connolly, Community Newswire

ARTS Autism Bristol, 31 Mar 2009 – 11:57


The National Autistic Society (NAS) is holding a free exhibition of artwork by adults with autism at Explore-At-Bristol’s cafe until April 24.


The exhibition, which marks World Autism Awareness Day on Thursday, uses art and photography to explore how the developmental disability affects the way people communicate with and relate to the world around them.


The artwork is displayed alongside comments from the artists and photographers, who are all affected by autism in different ways, and highlights the wide range of experiences of people with the condition.


Chris Peach, NAS regional director, said: “There are more than half a million people with autism in the UK – that’s one in 100 – and many adults with autism tell us how important art and creativity are in their lives. The variety and quality of the work on show is just incredible and I’d like to thank Explore-At-Bristol for helping us bring this exhibition to the city. We hope it will show just some of the realities faced by people with autism today.”


Selina Postgate, from Bristol, is 54 and has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. She said: “Knowing I have Asperger syndrome has changed everything in my world, it’s made me realise who I really am and why I think differently.


“Because I’m articulate, people don’t think I need any help, but my inability to cope with day to day tasks has had a huge impact on my mental health. It took the support of an advocate to finally get me the help I need. I have personal assistants now and that has made a huge difference to my life.”


Danny Beath, 48, from Shrewsbury, who also has Asperger syndrome, is exhibiting a photograph called Children In The Mist, which was taken against the setting sun inside a mist tent at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St Louis, United States.


He said: “When I took the photograph I felt like the outsider looking in, rather like the third misted out one in the picture.


“It’s really important to me to be able to demonstrate to the public what living with autism can feel like sometimes.


“My difficulties with social interaction and communication often make me feel like I live on the edge of things – like I’m always looking in at groups of other people.”


Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them. It is a spectrum condition, which means that, while all people with autism share certain difficulties, their condition will affect them in different ways.


Some people with autism are able to live relatively independent lives but others may have accompanying learning disabilities and need a lifetime of specialist support.


Chris added: “The services and support available to people with autism and their carers are woefully inadequate. While some people with autism may need a lifetime of specialist support, others, given the opportunity, would be able to live relatively independent lives. That’s why it’s so important that we all stand up and speak out in order to gain the right level of help, support and understanding for all people affected by autism.”


NAS, along with 20 other autism charities, is using World Autism Awareness Day to call on people across the UK to Stand Up for Autism – a theme chosen to highlight how many people are personally affected by the condition.


Celebrities including Jane Asher, Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford, Michelle Collins, DJ Judge Jules and Brit award-winning band Elbow, are among those who have already pledged their support.


The NAS relies on the support of its members and donors to continue its vital work for people with autism. To become a member, make a donation or to find out more about the work of the NAS, visit the NAS website www.autism.org.uk


For more information about World Autism Awareness Day 2009 visit www.waad.org.uk.


Source:   http://www.communitynewswire.press.net/article.jsp?id=5632962



First Published Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Scales of Justice

5-Year-Old Kicked Out Of Class


POSTED: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
UPDATED: 6:54 am EDT April 1, 2009

A teacher who held a vote to kick a 5-year-old autistic student out of her kindergarten classroom lost an appeal for reinstatement. An administrative law judge Tuesday upheld the St. Lucie School Board’s decision to suspend Wendy Portillo for a year without pay and remove her tenure. The school district determined that Portillo violated the state’s code of ethics for teachers and school board rules in May 2008 when she allegedly asked the class to vote whether the boy should stay in the classroom. The student, who was in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, had been referred twice to the principal for discipline problems. She lost the vote 14-to-2.


Source:   http://www.clickorlando.com/education/19062342/detail.html#-



First Published Thursday, 2 April 2009


Liberty

Some of the most vulnerable people in society will be better protected against abuse and poor care as a result of new legislation coming into force today.  People who lack capacity in hospitals and care homes will now be protected by a new law known as the ‘Mental Capacity Act Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards’.


The new law introduces new safeguards, so that, if a care home or hospital needs to deprive someone of their liberty for their own safety or wellbeing, they must now apply for permission. The law only applies to people in care home and hospital settings who are unable to make decisions on their own care or treatment and who need to be deprived of their liberty in their own best interests to protect them from harm.


The new safeguards only make it lawful for a person to be deprived of their liberty, based on a rigorous, standardised assessment and authorisation process. It gives people the right to challenge any decision to deprive them of liberty, a representative to act for them and protect their interests and the right to have their status reviewed and monitored on a regular basis.


Care Services Minister Phil Hope said:


“Vulnerable people will now have rights where previously they had none. Before this law came in, care homes or hospitals were able to lock someone up or sedate them without their consent, without that person having any kind of right to appeal or protest.


“This will improve care. The safeguards will flush out poor care and prevent people from being deprived of liberty in a care home or hospital unless it is absolutely necessary for their own safety. It is absolutely right to provide an independent legal framework so that vulnerable people are protected from potential abuse.


“This law will only be used as a last resort where it is necessary to keep a person safe and all other options have been exhausted. Protective care must be the exception and not the rule.”


These safeguards mean that, if a hospital or care home wants to deprive someone of their liberty to keep them safe from harm, they must apply to the local health trust or council for permission. This triggers a series of six assessments carried out by trained assessors. These are:


* The deprivation of liberty is in the person’s best interests to protect them from harm and is a reasonable response to the likelihood of the person suffering harm and the likely seriousness of that harm.


* The person must be over 18.


* The person must have a mental disorder.


* The person must not be subject to a requirement of the Mental Health Act. * The person must lack the capacity to consent to their own care or treatment.


* The authorisation must not conflict with an advance decision made by the person; or valid decision made on the person’s behalf by a donee of a lasting power of attorney or a deputy appointed for the person by the court.


Only if all these criteria are met will an authorisation be granted. At any stage, the person or their representative will be able to appeal against their deprivation of liberty to the Court of Protection. In an emergency, the hospital or care home can issue an urgent authorisation, for seven days, which speeds up the normal process of authorisation.


It is expected that there may be around 21,000 applications in the first year with around 25 per cent being authorised. So twenty one thousand people are expected to benefit from the new safeguards – both those whose applications are authorised and those where there will be no authorisation. The overall benefit is more safeguards for all with enhanced scrutiny of the care people receive in care homes and hospitals.


The legislation was welcomed by the National Autistic Society, the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD) and Action on Elder Abuse.


Mark Lever, National Autistic Society (NAS) Chief Executive said:


“Since a man with autism was deprived of his liberty against his will in 1997, we have been campaigning, along with his carers, to stop this kind of injustice from ever happening again. Autism affects over half a million people in the UK and many are prevented from enjoying the same rights and freedoms as the rest of society due to a lack of awareness and understanding. These new safeguards are a much needed step forward in protecting people with autism from discrimination and ensuring those affected by this complex disability have control over their own lives.”


Keith Smith, Chief Executive of the British Institute of Learning Disabilities said:


“The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are the way to give people who lack capacity the special protection they need. The British Institute of Learning Disabilities have been working with the Department of Health on this project and welcome the launch of the Safeguards as part of valuing and protecting the rights of people with learning disabilities”


Gary Fitzgerald, Chief Executive of Action on Elder Abuse said:


“Action on Elder Abuse warmly welcomes the introduction of the new safeguards. We believe that they will provide an essential protection for many of the most vulnerable members of our society. We have worked closely with a number of stakeholders in the run up to this launch and look forward to continuing this work as the impact of the safeguards becomes clearer”


“We hope that the new safeguards will herald a fresh debate about the care we offer to adults with so called challenging behaviour. The new safeguards and the principles of the Mental Capacity Act should provide the basis by which services are commissioned, purchased and provided.”


Notes

The Mental Capacity Act Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (MCA DOLS) came into force on 1 April 2009.

They amend a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and provide for the lawful deprivation of liberty of those people who lack capacity to consent to arrangements made for their care or treatment in either hospitals or care homes, but who need to be deprived of liberty in their own best interests, to protect them from harm.


Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and local authorities (designated as ‘supervisory bodies’ under the legislation) will have statutory responsibility for operating and overseeing the MCA DOLS whilst hospitals and care homes (‘managing authorities’) will have responsibility for applying to the relevant PCT or local authority for a Deprivation of Liberty authorisation.


Source
Department of Health (UK)


Source:   http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/144581.php



First Published Thursday, 2 April 2009


Bushfire Appeal Pic

Following the devastating Australian bushfires of February 2009, occupational therapists and health professionals will be in a central position to contribute to the well-being of children and their families affected by their traumatic experience. An editorial in the Australian Occupational Therapy Journal published by Wiley-Blackwell describes the important issues that health professionals have to consider when identifying and treating clients experiencing a range of post-traumatic difficulties.


Red Cross assisting families

“Children of all ages are particularly vulnerable as disasters like bushfires can have a profound effect on their developmental trajectories and their social relationships. The children affected by the Victorian bushfires have an even greater potential for adverse outcomes – as a result of their degree of exposure to the death of loved ones in traumatic circumstances, as well as the losses they’ve endured with regards to their schools and communities”, said Editor Dr. Elspeth Macdonald from the Australian Child and Adolescent Trauma, Loss and Grief Network (ACATLGN) and Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University.


The severity of the disaster directly relates to the likelihood of psychological distress felt by the victims. Although post-disaster morbidity may decline over time and onset of psychological problems may be delayed, the effects of the initial disaster exposure and losses are likely to persist for several years at least.


Occupational therapists and other health professionals can contribute to the well-being of these children not just by specialist services, but also through avenues such as school programs and supporting families to accept referrals for mental health interventions.


Australian Bushfires

“Mental Health Needs Post-Disaster: Supporting Recovery of Children and Families”
Australian Occupational Therapy Journal (Vol. 56, Issue 2, pp. 79-80).


Source:   http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/144543.php



First Published Thursday, 2 April 2009


Change

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — Some of the symptoms of the autistic condition Asperger Syndrome, such as a need for routine and resistance to change, could be linked to levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research led by the University of Bath.


Normally, people have a surge of this hormone shortly after waking, with levels gradually decreasing throughout the day. It is thought this surge makes the brain alert, preparing the body for the day and helping the person to be aware of changes happening around them.


However, a study led by Dr Mark Brosnan and Dr Julie Turner-Cobb from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, and Dr David Jessop from the University of Bristol, has found that children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) do not experience this surge.


The researchers believe these findings may help to explain why individuals with this condition have difficulties with minor changes to their routine or changes in their environment.


Dr Brosnan explained: “Cortisol is one of a family of stress hormones that acts like a ‘red alert’ that is triggered by stressful situations allowing a person to react quickly to changes around them.


“In most people, there is a two-fold increase in levels of this hormone within 30 minutes of waking up, with levels gradually declining during the day as part of the internal body clock.


“Our study found that the children with AS didn’t have this peak although levels of the hormone still decreased during the day as normal.


“Although these are early days, we think this difference in stress hormone levels could be really significant in explaining why children with AS are less able to react and cope with unexpected change.”


Dr Julie Turner-Cobb, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Bath and co-author on the study, said: “These findings are important as they give us a clearer understanding about how some of the symptoms we see in AS are linked to how an individual adapts to change at a chemical level.”


Dr David Jessop analysed samples from the children for levels of hormone at the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology at the University of Bristol.


He added: “This study suggests that children with AS may not adjust normally to the challenge of a new environment on waking.


“This may affect the way they subsequently engage with the world around them.”


The researchers hope that by understanding the symptoms of AS as a stress response rather than a behavioural problem it could help carers and teachers develop strategies for avoiding situations that might cause distress in children with the condition.


The next step in the research will be to look at whether children with other types of autism also lack a peak of cortisol after waking.



Journal reference:


  1. 1.  Brosnan et al. Absence of a normal Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) in adolescent males with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2009; DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.02.011


First Published Thursday, 2 April 2009


Teen Depression

Am J Psychiatry 2009 Apr; 166:385



Myrna M. Weissman, PH.D.


Self-harm affects thousands of depressed teenagers each year. A careful meta-analysis of pediatric antidepressant trials by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed a higher rate of spontaneously reported suicidal behaviors in adolescents randomly assigned to antidepressants versus placebo. The publicity about this relationship and the subsequent FDA black box warning was followed by a decrease in antidepressant use and a possible increase in adolescent suicides. Whether the increase is real and sustained is still unclear. Data that can identify who is at risk for an increase in reported self-harm with medication are difficult to find. Standardized systematic assessment of suicidal events in adolescent trials have only recently been developed, and adolescents with a history of self-harm behaviors, the ones with greatest risk, have usually been excluded from clinical trials.


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