FEATURED ARTICLE
I am not a robot... by Dr Danielle Farrel
My name is Dr Danielle Farrel, I am 35 years old, and I have Cerebral Palsy. I am the Managing Director of Your Options Understood (Y.O.U), a Community Interest Company based in Scotland. Providing a range of services to disabled people and the wider community including advocacy and education and training. In this article I have illustrated that contrary to popular belief, disabled people are not robots and are in fact the people that know best when it comes to voicing what they need and how they wish to be supported in order to live the life they want to lead.
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ou might be reading this and thinking that this is going to be some type of futuristic post, imagining something that resembles RoboCop, something that continually completes the same tasks automatically and repeatedly. However, it's not. It's a statement that refers to how I feel at times, due to having to rely on support as a result of living with a disability and I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. A phrase that would be better used is “what do I know? I only live it!!!” It often comes as part of the many challenges you have to deal with regularly when you have a disability. I have relied on support since the age of 14 and I've lost count of the many times I have been asked the question by a social worker along the lines of "how long does it take you to...?". This sentence has many different endings from "how long it takes you to have a shower in the morning?", "to prepare a meal?", or my absolute favourite is "how long does it take you to use the toilet?" Really? Yes, it is a reality that disabled people are asked these questions. When you have as much experience as I do around receiving support you begin to understand the systems and 20
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