


Archive for January, 2011
 
8 December 2010 Last updated at 12:56
An Aberdeen furniture workshop which employs staff with disabilities has won a three-year contract to supply beds to the Queen.
Glencraft closed last year with the loss of more than 50 jobs.
However, oil firm Production Services Network (PSN) stepped in and sought Scottish government support to breath new life into the factory.
Glencraft urged people buying beds to consider the organisation if they were good enough for the Queen.
The organisation previously supplied furniture to the Royal Family for decades, much of it to Balmoral Castle.
Glencraft operations manager Andy Laing said: “To have been re-awarded the Royal Warrant is a great honour and signals the strength of our business and the quality of our products.
“There is no doubt the last 12 months have been incredibly tough and we are still at the start of a long journey but this good news comes as a real boost to the business.
“You never know, we might even supply Prince William and Kate Middleton with a bed as a wedding gift from Glencraft.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-11948827

More than half of people with disabilities would like to work more, a major study of the lives of the lives of those with physical impairments has found.
3:09PM GMT 09 Dec 2010
While 26 per cent of the general population said they were “limited in the type or amount of paid work they did”, the proportion among those with disabilities was 56 per cent.
The most significant unique barrier to work among unemployed, disabled people was “anxiety and lack of confidence”, which 19 per cent cited.
The report, by the Office for National Statistics, also found that disproportionate numbers of disabled adults said they had limited opportunities to learn, meet people and enjoy leisure activities.
The vast majority of adults with disabilities (83 per cent) had limited participation in leisure, social and cultural activities and almost a quarter (24 per cent) had limited social contact.
Meanwhile, households containing disabled people were more likely to be financially stressed.
Almost half of households where at least one person had a disability (45 per cent) were unable to afford expenses or make loan repayments, compares to 29 per cent of households where no-one had an impairment.
According to the ONS’s Life Opportunities Survey, a quarter (26 per cent) of Britain’s adult population is disabled, as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act.
 
First official survey since 1997 says many individuals with impairments are living socially isolated, cash-strapped lives
• Get the data
Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editorÂ
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010 19.02 GMT
Disabled people are almost twice as likely as able-bodied people not to be able to work, have a holiday or take courses according to a bleak assessment in the first official survey of people with disabilities since 1997.
The Life Opportunities Survey asked 18,000 people about the “social barriers” they faced in eight key areas of life and found many disabled people in Britain are living socially isolated, cash-strapped lives and struggling to participate in normal activities.
Large numbers of disabled people suffered from so much “anxiety and lack of confidence” that they struggled to lead a normal life.
The result is a startling gap between what able-bodied and disabled people could manage to do in life.
Almost a fifth of disabled adults felt so stressed that work was beyond them – compared with just 4% of the general population.
One in eight impaired adults felt so insecure they would not venture to take a long-distance train, compared with just one in 50 able-bodied people.
A disproportionately high number of disabled adults said they had limited engagement with the modern world and were unable to move freely, work or enjoy leisure pursuits.
In employment, 56% of adults with impairments experienced restrictions in “the type or work they did or the salary they were paid” compared with just 26% of the general population.
This income inequality severely disadvantaged those with disabilities. Almost a third of households with an adult with impairments said they could not afford a week away on holiday each year – compared with just one in five of other households.
Shockingly, 12% of adults with impairments experienced difficulty “accessing rooms within their home or difficulty getting in or out of their home” compared with just 1% of adults without impairments.
“We have to recognise that everybody faces social barriers but they are higher for people with impairments,” said Tom Howe, who heads the survey for the Office of National Statistics.
“I think some of these things are obvious, like transport. There’s no way you can get on a bus if you are in a wheelchair if the bus does not have a low floor designed for you.”
One of the salient points made by the survey is that disabled people appeared to struggle financially.
Almost double the number of households with a person who had an impairment found it hard to pay off loans compared with the 15% of general population.
An unexpected bill of £500 would leave 38% of impaired adults struggling compared with 26% of their able-bodied peers.
“It is hard to know whether this is because people with impairments have reduced incomes or because they have higher living costs,” said Howe.
Disability charities said the findings showed there was still a long way to go before disabled people in Britain could enjoy the same opportunities as non-disabled people.
Guy Parckar, acting director of policy and campaigns at Leonard Cheshire Disability, said: “The survey really highlights what the impact of inaccessibility and discrimination can be.
“When people face problems and barriers every day it not only reduces their opportunities, it can actually hold back their aspirations too.
“Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people, and twice as likely to have no qualifications.
“Despite the improvements that there have been in terms of legislation, we are still a very long way from having genuine equal opportunities.”
The ONS study comes after the government this week published plans to replace the main benefit for the disabled, disability living allowance (DLA), with a new benefit – personal independence payment – that would have tighter eligibility criteria.
In the June budget, ministers had already said they wanted to reduce the number of working-age claimants of DLA, currently 1.8 million, by a fifth.
This would reduce yearly spending on the disabled by a little more than £1bn by 2014-15. Ministers say they “do not know” how many people will be affected by the proposed cut.
Campaigners said that these figures called into question the government’s strategy, as the “barriers” to participating in everyday life remained too high for disabled people.
“What the results show is that after more than a decade of economic growth disabled people still experience disadvantage across all aspects of life,” said Neil Coyle of Disability Alliance.
“As we’ve hit a downturn, disadvantage and exclusion are increasing – but, worryingly, the coalition government is choosing to slash support for disabled people.
“Time-limiting one benefit and restricting access to other support – including DLA, which helps disabled people with higher costs of living – will only impoverish and isolate disabled people and their families further.”
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Scope, said the survey threw up some “interesting dilemmas” for the government.
He said: “The survey has revealed that nearly half of households where at least one person had an impairment are unable to afford expenses or make loan repayments.
“Disability living allowance was introduced to help disabled people meet the extra costs of living with a disability or impairment and allows many people to live their everyday lives as fully as possible.
“That is why it is also imperative that the government reverses its decision to continue with the withdrawal of the mobility component from disabled people in residential care.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/09/disabled-people-missing-out-jobs-courses
 
Setting up your own company is not easy at the best of times, but there is support available and it can be hugely liberating
In 1995 Vanessa Heywood had the world at her feet, her talent as an actor, singer and dancer winning her roles in prestigious touring theatre productions such as West Side Story, Twelfth Night and Elvis: The Musical. But then she began to notice something was not quite right.
“As a dancer I was incredibly fit, obviously, but I was doing double pirouettes and not quite landing on a sixpence. At first I thought I wasn’t practising hard enough, that I must practice harder,” she recalls. “But then I started to realise it wasn’t that.” To her disbelief, a brain scan confirmed she had multiple sclerosis.
Heywood carried on dancing for a while, but found the life increasingly gruelling. “My energy was affected and I was trying to hide the MS constantly,” she says. Soon after, she had her two children in quick succession, but things became even more complicated when her husband suddenly left. This meant she had to look after two young children alone, without an income.
Six years ago she saw a chance to reinvent her career, utilising her lifelong passion for music to write inspiring, interactive songs for young children. “I took my kids to a singalong session where the mums were drinking coffee and singing The Wheels on the Bus rather halfheartedly, and I just realised, I could do better than this,” she says.
Looking after her two young sons by day, and working by night, she wrote in her lounge, often sleeping on the sofa when the MS stopped her getting up the stairs. “I was writing frenziedly,” she says of a time during which she composed 36 songs and created a group of characters, the Tiny Mites, which sprang from stories she told her sons. Unable to afford to hire a hall, she held her first music sessions for children in a church field in Radlett, Hertfordshire, where she lives.
Today her business, Tiny Mites Music, has contracts with a number of large holiday parks, nursery chains and schools and has released a Tiny Mites CD. Last week, she won the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs in the UK – an annual £50,000 prize awarded by EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s philanthropic foundation in association with Leonard Cheshire Disability, an honour she describes as “life-changing”.
Her story shows some of the advantages disabled people can derive from being self-employed. The government’s Office for Disability Issues estimates there are 10.1 million disabled adults – covering people with a longstanding illness, disability or infirmity, and who have significant difficulties with day-to-day issues – in the UK, about half of whom are of working age.
While setting up a business is not easy at the best of times, Kath Sutherland, a development officer with the Disabled Entrepreneurs Network (DEN) and a small business owner herself, says being able to work from a particular location, in hours that suit the individual, can be hugely liberating.
“I set up my company in 1999 because it was difficult to work nine to five,” says Sutherland, who needs 24-hour support for a combination of neurological and visual impairments and mobility issues. She set up her business, START (Ability), by offering support to groups of disabled people wanting to approach lottery funders, and who needed help with business plans and structures. She now also offers one-to-one training and support to national organisations, as well as resources in different accessible formats.
One problem, she says, is that would-be disabled entrepreneurs are often trapped in a Catch-22 situation. “At the DEN we get a lot of calls from people who need assistive technology, but can’t get it without starting up a business,” she says. “But then they can’t start up a business, or draw up a business plan, without the assistive technology. It can be very complex for some people to take the first step.”
Amar Latif, a blind entrepreneur and former Stelios award winner with his tour company, Traveleyes, agrees. “Setting up any business requires a lot of hard work and research. Then, if you’re blind, you’ve got other issues, such as information not being accessible for you to do the research,” he says.
Latif set up Traveleyes in 2004 because he loved travelling but was frustrated at not being able to do it independently: “Being blind, just jetting off by yourself without your family wasn’t an option,” he says. “You could fly, but you couldn’t explore by yourself.”
Traveleyes offers heavily subsidised prices for sighted travellers who, in exchange, spend part of the trip acting as the “eyes” for non-sighted travellers in the group. “I knew, in my heart, it was a great idea and it would work,” Latif recalls. “I did a little experiment and took someone to Malaysia and Thailand to be my eyes. The great thing was that the sighted person really, really enjoyed it, too.” He now also acts as an ambassador for Leonard Cheshire Disability, which helps would-be disabled entrepreneurs negotiate problematic issues like banks and business plans.
Long-term ME sufferer Linda Edmonds dreamed of starting a business hosting cookery parties and teaching kids to cook, but hadn’t worked for six years. “I’d always been active, but having ME was terrible,” she recalls. “I was hospitalised for six weeks at one point. It was crippling.”
She got in touch with Leonard Cheshire Disability through her local Jobcentre in Braintree, Essex, and was assigned a business adviser, Leonore Lord. “We offered Linda help with a business plan, accessing finance, help coming off benefits and lots of moral and emotional support,” says Lord.
“Leonore was fantastic in helping get me started,” says Edmonds, who finally overcame her ME shortly before her business, The Cookery Angel, launched in 2008. “It was a great feeling to come home exhausted, but because I’d been working, not because I’d been lying on the couch in agony all day.”
Lord thinks one of the biggest challenges disabled people can face in going self-employed is persuading relatives that it is a good move. “Friends and family are often concerned at the thought of disabled people setting up in business,” she says. “It can hold them back, so we provide the emotional support, critical friends and background information about opportunities, workshops and one-to-one support, so they’re thinking about all the things they should be thinking about, such as, What happens if I get poorly? What happens if the business doesn’t work? And also about coming off benefits.”
For those accustomed to benefits, that can be daunting. “If people’s whole household income is from benefits and they have fairly high housing costs, moving into self-employment is a bit like falling off a cliff,” says Ann Chaplin, a project manager with Enabled4Growth, a scheme that supports London-based businesses run by disabled people. “The benefits can stop immediately, and who can start a business that provides them with an immediate income of £20,000 to replace that lost income?”
The DEN’s Sutherland commonly answers questions about disability benefit entitlement for the self-employed. “There’s a lot of misconceptions, like you can’t get Access to Work [a practical advice and support service for disabled workers] assistance, which you can, and also that you can’t be self-employed if you’re on incapacity benefit. Actually, it can be allowed as permitted work,” she says.
Under the current permitted work rules, many ESA or incapacity benefit claimants can work for less than 16 hours a week on average with earnings up to £95, although government advice website Directgov recommends checking with your adviser beforehand. From February 2011, over 2 million people claiming incapacity benefit will be “migrated” on to the newer Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). To achieve this, the Department for Work and Pensions is undertaking a massive reassessment programme. Permitted work will still be allowed under the new scheme, but the prospect of reassessment is understandably causing apprehension among many claimants.
All this impacts on another key issue for disabled entrepreneurs: the difficulty in raising working capital. “Banks worry about lending to people who don’t have a perfect financial track record because maybe they’ve been on benefits, or they’ve got hearing or visual impairment, or they’ve got a chronic long-term illness,” says Lord.
Latif had to overcome just such preconceptions when setting up Traveleyes: “I’d walk into banks and they’d just say, ‘What? You’re blind, and you want to set up as a tour operator? Alone?’ There was a lot of working around that, it was quite a challenge.”
Jeremy Freeman, a deaf entrepreneur who runs website design consultancy Bamps.com, as well as two online toy shops, Treeblocks and The Bubble Shop, has also found funding hard to come by. “Even though we have a good business plan and our turnover has increased year on year, we haven’t been able to grow as fast as I would have liked,” he says. “I believe some bank managers use my disability not to lend – but they have not said that to me.”
Freeman has used the challenges he has faced to spur himself on and is also a regional director of a nationwide business networking group called BNI. “There are thousands of members all over the UK, and I only know of one other deaf person who is a member,” he says. “My deafness has helped me show businesses that deafness should not be a barrier – it has opened people’s eyes and given me a lot of respect that I can be successful despite being profoundly deaf.”
All the disabled entrepreneurs Guardian Work spoke to were keen to stress the importance of being passionate about your business. Heywood, who is preparing to franchise her Tiny Mites Music business nationwide, agrees it’s important to find an idea you really believe in, “then your passion and belief will push you through the bad times. I think that’s true for anyone, but especially if you’ve got extra difficulties to battle through.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/dec/04/disability-entrepreneurs-self-employment
 
The holiday season is upon us once again. It is a time of year filled with joy, hopefulness for the New Year and remembrances of years past, going back to childhood and parents. It is also a time of year that can be emotionally exhausting, especially if a loved one died during the last year. Combined with a vulnerability to Seasonal Affective disorder, the season and aftermath can be very difficult.
Because the season is a festive time that is marked by family renewals, a deep sense of loss and mourning can be pervasive when a loved one is missing. Normally, holidays bring with them fond reminiscences of past celebrations. The “empty chair” that was occupied by a wife, parent, other close family members and close and dear friends can often reawakens feelings of grief with renewed intensity.
In addition, there is the problem of seasonal changes that come with life during the winter months. Shorter days, fewer hours of sunshine, cloudy skies, cold and damp weather, all combine to cause Seasonal Affective Disorder for those are already vulnerable to its influences.
In other words, depression can raise its ugly head during time that is supposed to be festive. In fact, it has been my observation that the contrast between the joy that others are feeling and the sadness that one does feel, increases the sense of loss and abandonment during this time of year.
Some coping suggestions handling grief during the holidays:
1. When the family gathers, honor and remember the loved one by lighting a special candle.
2. Have everyone share a favorite memory.
3. Ask the family to take part in a loved one’s favorite holiday activity. Do something that would make your loved one smile.”
4. Everyone in the family feels the loss of the missing family member. Reminiscing about that family member can even bring smiles to everyone’s faces. Avoiding discussing the loss only worsens sad feelings.
5. If shopping in the malls feels too painful, shop for gifts online or just send cards. Everyone will understand.
6. Surround yourself with caring, loving and supportive people.
Coping with Seasonal Affective Disorder:
This disorder is characterized by depression, exhaustion and lack of interest in people and regular activities. The result is that the ability to function both socially and at work is impaired. Therefore, its important to:
1. Get outside during winter months even if the weather is awful., even if it is overcast.
2. Expose your eyes to natural light for one hour each day can reduce the symptoms of SAD.
3. At home, open the drapes and blinds in order to let in natural light.
4. If symptoms persist for more two weeks or more a more aggressive approach will be necessary by seeking psychological help.
5. This help may take the form of light therapy where special lamps expose the eyes to the type of sunlight that exists during spring and summer.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41398&cn=58
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Parents often live in fear of this time of the year, because as their child ages, their belief in Santa Claus becomes challenged by hints that perhaps he isn’t as real as they thought.
Sometimes the first hints come from watching television, catching a part of conversation that suggests Santa was never real. Other times it comes from surreptitiously catching Mom & Dad putting out the presents in the middle of the night. Yet other times it comes from the realization that it may be physically impossible for one individual to go down so many chimneys in such a short amount of time (not to mention how heavy he would be eating all those cookies!).
Psych Central’s parenting expert Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker will help you get through this transition to help keep your child’s disappointment and hurt to a minimum.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/12/12/the-dreaded-question-is-santa-real/
 
Article Date: 14 Dec 2010 – 3:00 PST
Losing a job is a profoundly distressing experience, but the unemployed may be more resilient than previously believed – the vast majority eventually end up as satisfied with life as they were before they lost their jobs, according to a new analysis published by the American Psychological Association.
“Unemployment rates continue to be historically high in the United States and other countries,” said the study’s lead author, Isaac Galatzer-Levy, PhD, who is now at New York University School of Medicine. “There’s a real concern that this will have long-term implications on the mental well-being of a large portion of the work force. But this analysis suggests that people are able to cope with a job loss relatively well over time.”
Galatzer-Levy and his colleagues analyzed results of the German Socioeconomic Panel Data study. This is a nationally representative survey of German households conducted yearly from 1984 to 2003. Their findings are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics.
For this analysis, the researchers used data from 774 participants who had all lost their jobs at some point during the study. Included in this analysis were the participants’ own reports of well-being in the three years before they lost their jobs until four years after the job loss. Specifically, they were asked, “How satisfied are you nowadays with your life as a whole?” Respondents rated this question on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being completely satisfied. They were also asked about their sex, age, education and employment status. The researchers also gathered national and regional unemployment rates during the time of the study.
“Because we used a large representative sample, unemployment follows broad economic trends in Germany,” said Galatzer-Levy. “Just like in the current climate, these are people who are losing jobs not due to fault of their own, but because they’re the victims of large market forces.”
Read in Full:Â http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/211325.php
 
It’s one of those “unintended consequences†of a government program started with the best of intentions — help the poorest of the poor families in our society get adequate treatment for their severely disabled child.
Yes, I’m talking about Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and The Boston Globe ran an in-depth investigative piece yesterday about some of those consequences, including rampant diagnosing of very young children and the over-prescribing of medication for them. “Many cash-strapped parents have come to believe that if only they can muster the necessary array of medical records, their children have a good shot at this benefit, even if it means carrying the stigma of the word “disabled.’’â€
A program that was supposed to help only a small minority of children — those with serious health or mental health disabilities — is now serving 53 percent of the 1.2 million children who qualify for SSI benefits, according to the article.
The number one “disabled†diagnosis? Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Now, don’t get me wrong. This is a good program that indeed does serve the needs of many poor families with severely disabled children. But because of losing a legal case in 1990, the program now has expanded to include things that aren’t automatically “disabilities†in any traditional definition of the term.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/12/13/ssi-encourages-families-to-label-healthy-children-with-adhd-as-disabled/
 
ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2010) — Expression of a toxic RNA that leads to Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome is modifiable by genetic or pharmacologic means, according to new research from U-M Medical School scientists.
In the study published online December 13 in the journal Public Library Of Science Genetics, U-M’s Peter K. Todd, M.D., Ph.D., led a team of researchers who examined the expression of a toxic messenger RNA (mRNA) seen in the brains of those afflicted with the syndrome.
Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS) is usually found in older adults, who often have grandchildren afflicted with Fragile X. Those affected with the adult form of the syndrome have slow gait, tremors, dementia and balance problems. The symptoms are caused by overproduction of a toxic mRNA in the brain that causes neurodegeneration.
“We found that the expression of this toxic mRNA is dynamic and modifiable,” says Todd, who is an assistant professor in U-M’s Department of Neurology. “There is a potential for modifying the increased production of the toxic RNA with drugs that inhibit histone acetylation.”
FXTAS is an under-diagnosed syndrome that was only discovered about 10 years ago, when researchers discovered the grandfathers of children with Fragile X were displaying common symptoms. It is one of three known Fragile X disorders that result from changes in the Fragile X gene. The altered gene can be passed down through generations, affecting both genders at different stages in life.
About 1 in 3,000 men and about 1 in 5,200 women in the general population will develop symptoms of FXTAS, according to the National Fragile X Foundation. Current estimates suggest that about 30-40 percent of male Fragile X gene carriers over 50 years of age, within families already known to have someone with a Fragile X-associated disorder, will ultimately exhibit some features of FXTAS.
Fragile X is the most common cause of developmental delay in boys and is the most common known single gene cause of autism.
Using both fruit fly models and human cells, the U-M researchers found that drugs that inhibit histone acetyltransferases modify the brain changes associated with FXTAS and could provide the pathway to a therapeutic target.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101213140952.htm
 
“I don’t have bedbugs, Kenneth. I went to Princeton.â€
~ Jack Donaghy, Character on NBC’s show “30 Rockâ€
You probably have heard on the news about the problem with bedbugs in hotels. Nasty little things. They come out at night and suck your blood while you sleep.
I like vampire stories as much as the next guy, but when it comes to my blood I am very possessive. I don’t want to share it with a bug. I assume you feel the same.
You can learn more than you’d ever want to know about these creatures at the government’s CDC website here, but suffice to say that it is worth an ounce of prevention to cope with them beforehand, particularly this holiday travel season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued a joint statement on bedbugs, including emotional reactions to them: “Bedbugs may also affect the mental health of people living in infested homes. Reported effects include anxiety, insomnia and systemic reactions.â€
Bedbugs are small, winged, reddish-brown insects that belong to the family Cimicidae and are about 5-7mm in size. Despite having wings, they can’t fly. They can live for months without feeding, but when they do chow down they typically have what’s been called a ‘breakfast-lunch-dinner’ pattern of multiple feedings. They draw blood and leave raised bumps on the skin when they’re done. You don’t have to treat them, but if there are enough bites it can lead to itching and widespread skin eruptions. In that case you’d want to have a dermatologist look at it.
Bedbugs literally are bloodsuckers: Within five minutes they can suck in as much blood as their own body weight, and that can last them as long as six months.
That’s the bad news. If there is good news it seems that they do not transmit diseases.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/12/14/sleep-tight-7-travel-tips-for-bedbug-phobia/

