About Old DCIL
Along with other newly forming organisations of disabled people in Britain and Europe, the Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People (DCDP) looked closely at the Centers for Independent Living (CILs) which developed during the 1970s in the United States. Influenced by experiences of segregated institutions, many people wanted CILs in the UK to develop on the US model, with the greatest possible independence from the statutory authorities.
In Derbyshire, debate was resolved in favour of a more collaborativerelationship. The reasons were:
- an opportunity was available to have real influence on Health and Social Services strategies for services to disabled people;
- DCDP wanted not only to demolish barriers to independence, but also to change the practices and attitudes that created the barriers in the first place.
For these reasons, DCDP asked for a working party with the Social Services Department to discuss a joint project. A Centre for Integrated Living would be one side of a Disability Project, alongside a new Strategic Framework in which statutory authorities would 'move away from welfare paternalism . . towards a collaborative relationship between service users and providers'. In discussions and workshops the outline of this Framework came to be called the Seven Needs.
In a series of working papers the specification for a CIL took shape. The working group met for 2½ years, with a break in 1983 when a vote calling for closure of a residential hostel in the county provoked a crisis (and happened to be televised).
In September 1984 Coalition members sat in on a Social Services Committee meeting that approved the first substantial funding in the UK for a major development programme run by disabled people.
DCIL opened in March 1985, in premises that had once been a staff house and teaching workshops of a secure school. It began to appoint two Co-ordinators, a team of Research and Development workers under Seven Needs headings, and Community Link Workers at bases in all parts of the County.
By 1988 DCIL employed 35 workers, in a mixed work-force that was never less than half disabled people. Two joint Health and Social Services strategies for disabled people were in place (north and south of the County), with a social understanding of disability and a Seven Needs framework written in to them.
By the end of 1992, 78 people had been employed by DCIL, 37 of them disabled, and over 200 disabled people had been actively involved in its work; 52 people had trained as peer counsellors, 27 had delivered a wide range of training; 52 disabled people had found jobs through a DCIL Employment Agency.
Now read about the New DCIL: The Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living