This article is from page 26 of the 2008-09-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 26 JPG
PRESIDENT Mary McAleese paid tribute to the Brothers of Charity Services in Clare for helping to lead the way in providing services for people with intellectual disabilities.
Speaking yesterday (Monday) at the organisations conference enti- tled “Transforming Services – Our Journey so Far” the President said, “Treland has come quite a journey in terms of services for people with disability and, if we have, then the Brothers of Charity Services here in Clare can say with considerable jus- tification that they have helped lead the way.
“From a largely institution based approach to a community based ap- proach, from a patchy set of services designed from above, to a nation “nothing about us without us” proc- ess Ireland, thanks to your advocacy and experience, begun to grow up when it comes to dealing with dis- ability issues,” she said.
In her address to the conference she added, ““We have come to see clearly that people with disabilities can and do make a major contribution to the social, artistic, sporting, political and economic life of their communities and of our nation.”
During the past four to five years, the Clare services have been under-
going a radical change in how we provide supports and services to people with intellectual disability. The traditional approach to service provision created a ‘disability world’ Whereby individuals with intellec- tual disability were placed with ‘one of their own kind’ resulting in little chance to experience life opportuni- Wee
In order to change from support- ing people with disabilities in con- eregated, segregated settings The Brothers of Charity in Clare under- took a number of initiatives to enable people to have valued and inclusive lives with meaningful relationships in their local communities.
It no longer builds special day cen- tres, group homes, training centres and respite facilities and instead uses its resources to create opportunities for people to build, create and main- tain lifestyles of their choosing and self determination.
From the conference in Ennis President McAleese, escorted by her husband Martin, made her way to In- agh where she officially opened the Annagh Duin and Inagh Ark Com- munity Creche.
This state of the art creche was built by Inagh Development Ltd and ac- cepted its first children in November. It caters for 64 children and employs eight staff.
Annagh Duin is a social housing scheme of 12 houses, which have been built purposely for the elderly.
The President then made the short journey to Miltown Malbay to of- ficially open the Spraoi Family Re- source Centre.
The brainchild of a number of lo- cal women, Spraoi Family Resource Centre, has the capacity to care for 80 children in total.
The centre contains a baby sleep and awake room for nine babies, 20 ‘“waddlers” for children aged from nine months to two years and pre- school facilities for 40 children and after school facilities for 20 more Obi lehnone