Accentuate

Tanya Lewis

I read your comments with interest and think that they are extremely valuable and well considered. I think it essential that continuing (and I do think that positive changes are happening) education and ground roots changes to allow simple ...access in all areas without restriction that in turn lead us all to expect and demand that every other person will be treated fairly and without discrimination. This should lead to acceptance and empowerment for more disabled people; with the removal of a barrier that the rest of us do not face, the battles are reduced and sport, art and life will become more available....

Kristina Veasey

I think Sarah raises a good point in that ‘elite athletes’ may not necessarily be an encouraging role model for disabled people who are unable to participate – in fact it can be irritating at best and soul-destroying at worst to watch people do things you can not. I think most disabled people can appreciate that.

One of the factors in my decision not to return to wheelchair basketball was because of the increased pain it causes me to play and the degenerative impact it has on my impairment. In this case though, it is not the sport that is stopping me from playing, it is my impairment. My impairment is the barrier. There are no changes that could be made to the game that would allow me to play so there are no ‘environmental barriers’. Very frustrating for me. I guess I can at least say that I did have the chance to play, for some people that has never been the case and never will be. Very frustrating for them. Sometimes that is just the way it is.

There are some things we can do and some things we can’t. I think the important point is to make sure that if it is possible to remove the things that are stopping us from participating, we should do so. We should also, as a collective, help to make sure barriers are removed for everyone, so giving everyone the chance to reach their potential, whatever that may be and in whatever fields.

Allowing opportunity and choice is key, and to do that we need to remove all barriers: in access to and quality of education, health, jobs, housing, finance, transport, resources and support, human rights, leisure and social life. It is about equality and inclusion across the board.

To echo another of Sarah’s points, and something I mentioned in my Gaming! blog, those children and young people with parental support and encouragement are far more likely to get ahead. This is often related to the parents’ class, finances, education and energy levels. Those who start in a good place are more likely to continue along that path and those with less will struggle harder to achieve the same. That is the same in all areas of life, it’s just that if you are disabled or have a disabled child you are far more likely to be living in or on the edge of poverty so you are already at a disadvantage.

Even for those children whose parents do have some socio-economic advantages, the very fact they find themselves having to fight for and protect their children to such an extent to get even the basics, means that things can have unintended consequences. There are children I have coached who have been so protected and had many of their battles fought for them (and understandably so) that they feel they are incapable of achieving anything for themselves. In their parents’ fight to protect and support their children they have disempowered and stifled their child’s self-esteem and self-belief. For those children, and for those parents too, playing sport and having disabled sporting role models can make a huge difference. For me, seeing young people go from sitting under a basket with a ball on their lap saying “there’s no point, I’m rubbish at everything” to being able to develop their skills and make that basket, and seeing the sense of achievement drawn across their face in an excited grin, is the very reason I enjoyed coaching so much.

In the media we seem to have jumped from the image of disabled people as pitied, unworthy, incapable and a drain on society to being the ‘super-crip’ elite athletes and talented artists that are beginning to be showcased more and more in the media. Neither image is a true representation of most disabled people. However, for many young disabled people there are no positive disabled adult role models in their lives at all.

I was recently told by a teacher that a young person at the residential ‘special’ school she works at had alluded to the fact he thought he would no longer need his wheelchair and round the clock support staff, and would be able to walk once he had left school and joined the adult world. He simply thought his cerebral palsy would disappear. After some discussion it transpired that because he had never seen a disabled adult he assumed he would grow out of his own impairments. How does a young person picture themselves achieving in the future if they have no bench marks to check their progress by or aspire to and no adults they can relate to in the same way?

In my advocacy work with disabled ‘care-leavers’ I once met a young woman who said she was amazed to see me, a wheelchair user in a job (not just this job, but any job – I think she thought I was a new resident at the home rather than the person she was going to be meeting with). With all the teams of adults who had come in and out of her life so far, she had never yet come across one in a wheelchair. We ended up talking very little about the transition issues we had arranged to talk about and instead I was quizzed on more important things like how did I get in and out of bed, how did I go to the toilet, and had I ever sat on a horse? She wanted to know if I was like her and if she was like me.

So, whilst I think it is important for us to celebrate the very real achievements of our athletes and artists, and I do think that will help raise the profile of disabled people generally, I think it is important to harness that media enthusiasm and profile and use it to highlight issues around inclusion, equality and access to opportunity and push them further up the political agenda. It is important to raise awareness in wider society that not all disabled people can be elite athletes and talented artists, or perhaps want to be and most importantly, that that does not mean that if they aren’t either of those things that they have failed in some way (or are benefit scroungers!).

Sarah Playforth

I absolutely agree with much of what both Jamie and Amy have said about the documentary, and found most, if not all, of it fascinating and exciting and the athletes wholly admirable. But, as a deaf person and someone who works across the whole field of disability and diversity, while I can certainly identify with ideas about determination and achievement and even "overcoming odds", I can't get rid of a feeling of exclusion from this wonderful world experienced by a tiny minority of disabled people. Yes, it can be inspiring but it can equally be disheartening for some people. There seems to be a very clear hierarchy of "acceptability" to me in relation to the whole range of impairments and differences and it is a rare person who challenges and overcomes this and reaches their full potential. It is so often the issues around communication that create barriers - Deaflympics and Special Olympics have much lower public profiles than Paralympics. So perhaps we just say, ok, there will be winners and losers in life's game? It does seem that in paralympics, this is inevitable - how much does it matter? In paralympics, there are such clear divisions relating to functionality, it is hard to accept for people like myself with a firm belief in the equal value of all. Fran Williamson in the guest column in October's Disability Now talks about the impact on the motivation of "lower class" (nothing to do with socio-economic status) athletes of the creation of an "elite" with higher functional ability - represented so clearly in Inside Incredible Athletes. Fran feels the existence of this elite makes invisible the many "lower class" athletes who are striving equally hard and who are equally important potential role models. So - are the elite encouraging or discouraging? I believe there is so much more to this - home background, education, money or lack of, sometimes just sheer bloodymindedness all play their part. Like many issues around disability, this one is multifaceted and very complex, no easy answers.

PS! The word "disabled", is commonly used to permanently describe someone with functional impairments and the impairments are seen as "disabilities". For me, with my belief in the social model, a disabled person is someone with impairments who encounters barriers in society. If you don't encounter barriers, you are not disabled - so it is context not impairment that disables and someone with an impairment may move from being disabled to not being several times in a day.

Kristina Veasey

I originally posted this blog in the 'private' Our View area of this website in response to an ongoing debate about sport and art sitting alongside each other within Accentuate. Rather than try to respond directly to Jamie's wonderfully written piece describing his enlightenment about paralympic athletes, I thought I would instead post my former ramblings where the rest of you can read them and make comment. For the record, I enjoyed watching Inside Incredible Athletes immensely and I'm glad that we now have another supporter in Jamie and hopefully in many others too!

Sport vs Art?

So where do I stand with the whole sport and art thing? I am an average artist and a former elite athlete. With both sport and art, as with all that I do, I try to do my best, to excel and I do want to enjoy it even if that’s not always the way it works out. A lot of it is about the effort you put in, a lot is about talent and a lot is about opportunity. I have different levels of each of those in different areas of my life, as do we all.

Both sport and art are about self-expression. An artist may have free choice about how that expression manifests and the mediums, tools and channels used to enable it but so too does the athlete in their interpretation of the game their pushing of the rules and boundaries, their unique touch, flair and game plan. Both genres allow individual style, self-fulfilment, and the ability to affect and influence others.

So where is the competition between these two arenas that thus far seem to have so much in common? There are certainly elements of competition with in each field. Quite obviously anything done with the purpose of achieving personal best is entrenched with a competitive edge. Whether that competition is with yourself or with others, whether it is your own self-evaluation and judgement you are vying against or those of team mates, other artists or your audience it is all a need or want for approval and there is competition in trying to gain it.

In terms of Accentuate and the values and goals that see art and sport brought together and sitting side by side I think the focus should be less on suspiciously eyeing up the other and more on the common value and combined advantages that can be harnessed and used to benefit us all. I think the focus is three-fold.

Firstly, individual disabled people should be encouraged, supported and enabled to participate in creative, emotional, physical, intellectual and cultural expression through whatever formats they choose to use. For me the competitive edge whilst almost always present is not necessarily essential to enjoyment or achievement. People will bring what they want to it and participate in a way that is meaningful to them. Whatever their motivation, it is having the opportunity that is key. Winners? Losers? Who defines those terms?. An easy win or playing badly does not make me feel as proud or fulfilled as a tough game or a well-played defeat. My competition is within myself as I compete to reach my full potential.

Secondly, those who do excel in both sport and the arts should be recognised and celebrated in the same way as their non-disabled peers. People have said to me that they do not rate the achievements of paralympic athletes as the number of competitors is far lower than in non-disabled sport. It is an argument that stands up only if the standard of skill and achievement is lower. After all, David Beckham is a great footballer not because of the number of others who are less good but because of what he brings to the game and how he performs. Being at the head of your game is hard work. One of the main reasons I no longer play wheelchair basketball is because of the big ask on your family and those around you when you are training twice a day 6 days a week and are away for weeks at a time for tournaments and training camps. It takes a lot of dedication, sweat and graft. It is about pushing your body as hard as you can, learning new skills and practicing existing ones.

I have heard people say that disabled sport is often not of a high standard. In terms of paralympic sport I think those who are making judgement do so without realising the physical limitations that have to be worked around. How skilful is it for a non-disabled person to score a 3 point basket compared to disabled person who sits, rather than jumps, who has had to identify and develop what few working muscles they have, control the equipment they are sitting in and bolstered with strapping to keep themselves upright in their chair, they are able to practice and strengthen and train, train, train to shoot the same shot into the same height basket and score those same three points. When the likes of Clare Strange and Louise Sugden score those shots for Great Britain they really are showing the skills of an elite athlete. I might also add here that they also do this whilst holding down careers and receiving very little in terms of funding for their sport.

I remember in my team’s preparation for Athens 2004 balancing the demands not just of training but of raising two small children, building my own career and fundraising £1000 per person in a bid to buy a plane ticket to attend a Canadian tournament so we might have the opportunity of playing our non-European opponents before meeting them head-on in the paralympics themselves. Again whilst this is often the case for many other non-disabled athletes there does seem to be a hierarchy in funding opportunities -with those who play as a team, are female, are disabled sitting at the bottom of the pile. Ironically, success in sport is rewarded with the funding you really needed on your journey to the top only coming once you have arrived under your own steam. Of course for many of us the steam runs out before that point is reached! How many potential gold medallists; battle-weary and unsupported have fallen by the wayside?

So, in celebrating those who do make it to the top perhaps we can raise an awareness of the struggle to get there and the real-term achievements of those who do so and also those who are trying to against the odds. This brings me to my third point which is that in this celebration of excelling disabled athletes and artists we are able to raise the positive profile of disabled people generally.

I am fully aware that paralympic sport is not inclusive. In the first instance the participant needs to be able to cognitively understand and process the game, what is required of them and be able to execute that effectively and secondly they need to have the physical capability to make that happen. Not everyone can do both of those things even if they have the dedication and enthusiasm and have a natural predisposition or talent for it. We are all individual and all different. Some of us may find we are disadvantaged or at an advantage in certain sports because of our height or build and I guess that’s the same in disabled sport too but the difference here is that if you are disabled your impairment may mean you are unable to participate altogether. Even if you are able to participate you may never make the team because of where you fall in the classification system. In terms of paralympic sport the classifications (mainly based on muscle use and control) within a sport may leave you in a position where you are never going to be better than others in your group however hard you train. Whilst the classification system tries to be fair, a line always has to be drawn somewhere and unfortunately that always leaves people in a position of being most or least able even within their classification. This makes things tricky if you are directly competing for a place on the team and your competitors are physically able to do things you can not. It will always be a conundrum. People just don’t fit in boxes!

I think that part of our role with Accentuate is to highlight that for many people sport is not available on the same terms or is not available at all. For the most active and able disabled people accessing sporting opportunities is a problem. For myself, I can not just pop out for a run or a swim or a cycle. If I want to play a team sport or even have an opponent I need other wheelchair users (preferably of a similar standard) to play with. I need facilities. I need equipment. So if as a former paralympic athlete those are just some of the barriers I face, what is it like for others? What is like for the disabled people who are often not heard, not talked to, not asked and who find it harder than most to remove barriers and find empowerment and inclusion.

My third focus for Accentuate is therefore to make sure that those disabled people who are not elite in their field are not sidelined in favour of the ‘super-crip’. Lets make sure that we use the celebration and high public profile of those disabled people achieving in the arts and sport to enlighten and raise awareness of other disabled people too. Of those who also want to participate in a fulfilling life but are faced with barriers they can not remove alone.

Liz Porter

I really enjoyed reading Jamie's review, and it's certainly got me wanting to watch the programme.Sounds as though the programme makers have really struck the right balance, want to trigger people to reflect on the sporting prowes skill and dedication of paralympians. I shall watch in on my PC later.

thanks Jamie.