CHOICE - a basic human right that none of us have!

For the past couple of months my brain has been consumed by change. It feels as if every event I attend, every conversation I have with family, friends, coworkers is bringing me to the place I am right now. The conversations are molding together to build motivation in me. They are confirming the belief that all things are connected and there is a peaceful way for human kind.

In April we held our H S A Canada annual Gathering and the theme was CHANGE! This started my thinking around how change can happen and that in order to truly accomplish the goal of having people live truly fulfilling lives with choice and control, we need to make a change in our systems that support us. This was followed by a forum that I attended a couple of weeks ago facilitated by Dave Hasbury. (www.cocreation.ca) where we discussed what Independent Facilitation and support for people with Developmental Disabilities could look like. He had a very simplistic and gentle way of pointing out that even though we have worked hard in human services and we have done a good job, we have learned and changed as needed by society. So why are we stuck now? Now we know better and we can do better. Our system is not working for people and we need to change it.

About 10 years ago I was at a Provincial event where we were asked what our vision of human services is in 10 years and my answer was " that people get the supports they want and need from wherever/whoever they want with the financial freedom to do so and we don't have specific agencies to care for specific human service needs." You can imagine the strange looks I got and even some chuckles but I was ok with that, it was my vision. Today I see that others are seeing that vision also.

Now this is much bigger conversation than just human services. It is all systems, all things or approaches created by systems for people instead of by people for people. Here are the reasons I think it's backward.

1. Systems hire people to support people - we are raised to believe that our future is what we make it, we grow we go to school, choose a career, family etc. Hopefully we get a job in the career we spent thousands of dollars to earn a degree or certificate in. We are hired by an agency to support people. Where is the choice for the people we are supporting?

2. Our government spends billions of dollars every year in base funding to ensure that agencies have the money to pay support people, managers, directors, Executive Directors etc. These are our tax dollars and people supported are often not happy with the designed supports. This is system led, not people led. What if people were their own Executive Directors? They had the money (from their own tax dollars) to recruit and hire people they want and direct the supports they want and need so they can build a life of choice.

3. We have policies and procedures and quality assurance measures that systems create with good intentions but these things eliminate choice an control from the lives of people they support.

4. Systems have control instead of people.

5. As consultants and trainers in person centred approaches we are teaching people how to use approaches to share control or power with people because as systems we automatically have control. We will never be able to give people total choice and control this way.

So why hasn't change happened? Because change is hard. Change is scary. People have to be motivated to change and see the benefit in the change for their lives. So if today the government announced they are going to undergo transformation in human services and change to an individualized funding model that puts people in charge of their own lives what would happen? We would have thousands of employed people in the streets opposing this idea because naturally we think about our source of income first - they can't do that, what about me? A totally legitimate question. My answer would be there will be plenty of jobs in the same field it will just look different. You will have a job, people will always need support and they will need someone to help them manage that support. I would follow with the question "What is the primary reason you do your job?"  I would probably hear income as a primary reason, again totally legitimate. What about a secondary reason? Is it status? (still legitimate if that's what you value) or is it because of the sense of personal gratification you feel from seeing people achieve success defined by themselves? If your third reason is the latter, it might be time for personal change as well.

This change is happening in our world led by great minds and talent. Helen Sanderson in the UK had a status, she led an international organization that provided training and consultation and was respected and admired internationally for her work. She could have held on to that status/position and continued the work she was doing but she didn't. Helen Sanderson Associates still exists but Helen has left the lead of that to competent people internationally. She moved on to supporting people again, front line, where she could really see and feel the difference in people's lives. wellbeingteams.org is her new passion and it reflects exactly what Dave Hasbury suggested we need in terms of change in Canada. These are self managing teams with personal budgets to hire the supports they want and need. Of course she still holds a status but I believe the work is more important than the status to her.

The time for change is now. If we don't create this change we all face a future of needing support that has control over how our lives progress. I certainly want to control my own future. Just because systems are in place doesn't mean we have to accept them the way they are. We can change and create a model that provides people with the basic human right to CHOICE!