Centre makes Colin’s day

COLIN Cartwright knows his own mind. The 36-year-old may have learning difficulties, but it is perfectly clear what he wants when it comes to the future of the Yearsley Bridge day centre.

Colin is chairman of the Yearsley Bridge members' council, and secretary of the day centre's lending library.

He's happy to show off the Christmas decorations he and other day centre users are making in the bright, cheerful craft room. But then, without any prompting, he speaks his mind.

"I want the centre open for the future," he says. "I like it here. I don't want it to change."

Judging by the number of relatives who have contacted The Press since it became clear the day centre was going to close, he is not the only one.

On a quick tour of the centre, it is easy to see why so many people are opposed to the closure.

Yes, the building is ageing, and there is a slightly institutional feel and smell to the place.

But what really strikes the casual visitor is the sheer quality of the care offered to the 55 or so people, many of them with severe learning and sometimes physical disabilities, who come here during the day.

Nowhere is that more apparent than at lunchtime.

In the admittedly rather drab dining room, 30 or so people are sitting at tables. Many are happy to feed themselves, sitting in small groups with their friends. But others, their bodies too wracked by spasms, are unable to do so. Members of staff gently hold spoons to their mouths to help them. The care and patience with which this is done is remarkable.

This isn't just a place where those with severe learning disabilities are sent during the day to get them out of the way.

The building may be long in the tooth, but there are top-quality facilities - a hydrotherapy pool, a light room, a pottery centre, a craft room and a small kitchen for the use of customers. And every day the people coming here are given a range of activities to do designed to stretch their mobility, their language skills and their independence.

Pottery making, for example, can give a sense of achievement, says centre manager Miriam Purcell - and the feel of the clay, and the act of shaping it to form even something as simple as layered, decorative tiles, is a great way of developing physical skills.

The light room, where swirling patterns of light can be played across the walls and ceiling, is good for relaxation - but because users can also affect the light patterns by using trip switches, it also helps them to build up a sense of cause and effect.

The hydrotherapy pool, meanwhile, is excellent for allowing people whose limbs may be twisted or spasmed to exercise gently in warm water, where their muscles can be stretched and exercised without putting too much strain on them.

Perhaps best of all, however, is the fact that - despite their sometime severe disabilities - the people using this centre seem genuinely to feel as thought they belong to a community of their own.

There is the Yearsley Magazine, written by the centre users themselves, which takes the form of a panel of photos and stories along one wall. There are the friendships formed. And there is the members' council, which give users the sense of being involved.

What worries Carol Mitchell most about Yearsley Bridge closing is the thought of her 50-year-old brother, Michael Palmer, losing this community.

Michael was brain-damaged at birth, and has been attending the centre five days a week for years.

He has a severe learning disability and is not, Carol admits, very communicative. "But he loves to watch the others. When it closes I worry that he's going to feel lost."

Whenever he is stressed or his routine is disrupted while he is away from the centre, he always starts saying "Centre! Centre!", Carol says - a sure sign that to him it is somewhere safe and familiar.

So why, since Yearsley Bridge clearly provides such an excellent service, is the city council proposing to close it?

It is not a money-saving exercise, stresses Anne Bygraves, head of the council's learning disability service. And it is in no way an attempt to reduce the amount of care provided for people with severe learning disabilities.

If someone had five days of support at Yearsley Bridge, they will continue to receive that once it closes. But the feeling is that care for such people is best provided in their local communities where possible, rather than in a large institution such as Yearsley Bridge.

The council had already been considering modernising the service for those with severe learning disabilities when a Government white paper in 2001 called for a less institutionalised approach.

What is happening at Yearsley Bridge now is part of a process that began in 2004 with the similar Hebden Rise day centre in Acomb.

After almost two years of consultation, that was closed at the end of last year, and care for the people who used that centre is now provided in a range of different ways.

These include:

* The much smaller and purpose-built Pinetrees centre, near West Bank Park.

* The Park View service, which caters for four people.

* Work placements in the independent sector - including at a plant nursery.

* Individual support in a customer's own home.

A similar range of alternatives will be offered to the people with learning disabilities who use Yearsley Bridge.

Exactly what form those alternatives will take is not clear yet.

Over the next nine months, every user of Yearsley Bridge will be invited - along with their families and professional care providers - to take part in a "person-centred review", which will aim to determine exactly what their care needs are and how these could be best provided.

It is clear the professionals genuinely believe they will be able to provide better, more individualised care for these vulnerable people following the change.

Instead of being shunted off into institutions, they will become part of local communities again.

The aim, Anne Bygraves says, is to ensure that they can "connect with their local community, as opposed to a fake one that is created for them?"

But what if they are happy with that "fake community"? And what about the friendships they have built up there - with other users, and with those excellent members of staff?

Most of the people who used to go to Hebden Rise managed to maintain their friendships with other users in one way or another, Ms Bygraves says - perhaps on a group outing, or at a centre like Pinetrees.

And the staff? Would they still see them regularly? There is nothing to say that they won't necessarily be able to, Ms Bygraves said. But nothing to say that they will be able to, either?

"We don't know that."

Carol Mitchell is not reassured.

Unless you have lived with someone with severe learning disabilities, it is hard to understand just what huge stress and anxiety the closure of a centre like Yearsley Bridge will cause, she says.

Her brother Michael has only just got over the death of his mother.

"It has taken him over three years to get him to accept his Mummy has gone," she says. "So if Yearsley Bridge does close would the councillors like to spend three years on a daily basis trying to explain why he no longer goes there?"

What happened after Hebden Rise shut...

IN THE run-up to the closure of Hebden Rise day centre in Acomb, relatives expressed exactly the same worries as the relatives of those using Yearsley Bridge are now, says Anne Bygraves.

"There was a lot of concern and worry," she says. "Some people had been attending Hebden Rise for 20 or more years, and enjoyed the people they spent time with and the staff team who supported them."

Inevitably, the transition period was difficult. But a year on, many staff, carers and users alike were happy, Ms Bygraves says.

The relative of one man who had used Hebden Rise told the council he had had concerns. "But it has proved to be a change for the better for our son. He is very settled in his new service at Pinetrees and we could not have wished for better."

But Muriel Jefferson, whose 50-year-old daughter Susan went to Hebden Rise for 17 years, says it took months to find a suitable room where Susan could be cared for during the day once the centre closed.

Mrs Jefferson is on a scheme where the council funds her to pay for professional carers for Susan, who is autistic and epileptic and has physical difficulties.

For months they had to look after Susan at Mrs Jefferson's home during the day.

Now Mrs Jefferson, who is in her seventies, has managed to find a suitable room for Susan. But away from Hebden Rise, her daughter is still very isolated, she says.

"The girls I've got to look after Susan are wonderful. But there is no peer interaction. I would say that is very important," she says.

Yearsley - the future...

THREE meetings are to be held at Yearsley Bridge this week - the first tonight - for carers, relatives and others who are concerned about how closure of the centre may affect loved ones.

Tonight's meeting is from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. Meetings will also be held tomorrow at the same time, and from 2.15pm to 4.15pm on Wednesday.