21st May 2020 by Noelle Blackman, Chief Executive.
Since the Prime Minister’s announcement on 10th May I have found myself in a permanent state of anger and despair. Anger about the lack of clarity and guidance given to us all and despair at the confusion and danger this puts us in.
It feels as though the main focus for our government is getting the economy working again at the expense of the health and wellbeing of many people in our society. The call was particularly for construction and manufacturing workers to get back to work to generate a profit and get things moving financially again. These are the types of jobs in which it is almost impossible to socially distance.
The continuing spill of mixed and contradicting messages that have been seeping from the government ever since the once clear messages of stay home, stay safe morphed into STAY ALERT have left us unanchored in a sea of conflicting and confusing communication. It seems as though the responsibility for keeping safe has now been quite intentionally moved across to each one of us individually, there is no leadership taking any responsibility or culpability anymore for decisions made.
For people with learning disabilities or autism, making individually safe decisions may be even harder than it is for most. It was hard for many people to have their freedom curtailed and their routines changed, however, many people were getting the message clearly from so many sources that this is what everyone is having to do, that it is a matter of life and death. Even when people found it just too much and perhaps got cross or upset, eventually there could be a realisation that the limitations were not just for them, we were all in this together to a point. But now the message has completely changed and there is nothing clear, no certainty. So, we are left to weigh up for ourselves what is safe and this could mean that people will now find it really hard to make good decisions, to keep themselves well and safe.
On my lowest most cynical days I wonder is this intentional? Is it stupidity or is it a calculated method of gaining herd immunity at the expense of lives considered unimportant?
What kind of guidance is – Stay Alert? It sounds more like a description of our hypervigilant states as we try to work out how to keep safe both mentally and physically. The trauma we all feel when we remember this is about staying alive. It is hard to feel safe when we lack trust in our government, when we are not sure that we are being told the truth or given clear facts to make good choices ourselves. This is the stuff of nightmares, to be gaslighted by those in power.
We were told we are all in this together, however there has been nothing equalising about this pandemic. Those hardest hit by Covid-19 seem to be people who live in poverty, who have not had equal access to health services and those who are receiving social care or detained in hospital.
However, on my better days I look around and see amazing partnerships and supportive connections being made in my local community, in my organisation, on social media and across our whole country. Perhaps the only way to navigate this is to keep connected and communicating well with one another, working out the voices to trust and joining those all up so that together we can support each other to keep safe and come out the other side even stronger.
