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From: Greg.See-Kee@f631.n712.z3.fidonet.org (Greg See-Kee)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Emotional support
Message-ID: <12066@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 25 May 90 03:59:46 GMT
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 >> <"If you are looking for pen-pals, or personal-support
 >> services, I
 >> <"am still waiting for someone to re-name this conference
 >> more accurately.
     
 JS> It seems to me that the need for "personal support" is 
 JS> an issue as relevant to this conference as any other - perhaps more
 JS> so than most.
     
Agreed.  I don't know whether you have any contact with
disability organizations.

In those organizations, they are always worried:

  "Are we attending to organization, rather than to specific
   individuals"?

This International Conference also has the same problem.

For those of us who have worked professionally and full-time in
the Caring Industries (including prisons, migrant hostels, youth
refuges, women centres - not just health centres) -- we
professional people know that the

        "Welfare Bucket is bottomless!"

This means that no matter how much resources your throw at
"problems" - the "problems" never go away.

I am suggesting that we decide whether this conference is a
Help-Line, or a discussion area.

Simple people might say that it can be both!   But whatever this
conference does, it will have an OPPORTUNITY COST!

This Opp-Cost prevents the emergence of other services.

It is like the Uncle Tom phenomena.  As long as Uncle Tom
continues to hog centre-stage, then other actors cannot come out.

In this conference, if there becomes an avalanche of
VICTIM-RESCUER messages, then it prevents the development of
something greater.

What I am fore-moving, is that eventually this conference will
become redundant, because Disabled people will no longer be in a
VICTIM-RESCUER-PERSECUTOR triangle.

If we continue with trivial solutions ("I care!") to major
environmental problems, the CAUSE of the problems will never be
removed.

So rather than plug our thumbs in the holes of the dam, I am
trying to re-build or whatever, the WHOLE dam!

In my expert opinion, we should leave the pathch-work repairs to
those people who are expert at repairs.

In the ego-repair business, there are (in Australia, at least) an
overflow of ego-repair agencies.  In forthcoming messages in this
conference, perhaps we might discuss these agencies.

At this stage, I'm trying to clear enough room, so that long term
solutions can be found.  The answer does not exist in an overflow
of short-term cover-ups.

--
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