CRUcial Times Issue 21 - Editorial

Jane Sherwin

We learn from our personal engagement with others about the extent of our capacities and incapacities, our forgiveness and our lack of it, our generosity and our selfishness, our ability to live life in a way that gladdens our hearts.
(George Durner)

Recent editions of CRUcial Times have carried articles that have helped readers to consider the real meaning of a word we are all familiar with - Community. In this edition we want to go further by asking, among other things, what is a vital community? We want to try to describe what a vital community looks like, with all its members playing a vital part in its life.

One view of a vital community is one in which there is a rich mosaic of life that is an interconnectedness between people, places and interests. Coming together with others provides social and material exchanges that give meaning to life - we learn about ourselves and about each other, and we find both joy and uniqueness in the ordinary and the everyday. A vital community has a life-giving nature. In this kind of community people find more in common with each other than they do differences in each other. In contrast, barren communities are those where there are few interconnections and where it is easy for particular people to be perceived as the 'other'. In barren communities material and hedonistic values dominate, narrow views of attractiveness and worth are sanctioned, and the definition of a good neighbour is one who doesn't talk to other neighbours.

Vital communities evoke an awareness of one another and a sense of involvement, and there is a strong sense of crafting both the present and the future of the place and its people. This kind of community is characterized by relationships between people - people brought together over a back fence or over a common interest, through familiarity, and through a sense of connection. But what part do people with disability play in the vitality of their communities?

A significant achievement of the past twenty years has been an increased acceptance of the belief that people with disabilities belong to their local communities, enjoying relationships and interests, and their own homes. Yet the hold that people with disabilities have on community life is still tenuous: governments, service systems and local neighbourhoods can all act as gatekeepers to community life for those who are always at risk of being rejected or " marginalised, with eviction notices easily served on the basis of disability, behaviour, or multiple needs. People who are isolated through a lack of relationships with other ordinary members of their community are the most vulnerable to this kind of eviction.

While we might celebrate the fact that there are more people with disabilities present in communities today, they are strangely absent too - absent from the heart of vital communities - present yet absent. Imagine a life that is characterised by unfamiliarity, insecurity, loneliness and dispossession. Such experiences do not contribute to a vital community, yet they are the common experiences of people with disability.

Social history shows that the rise of institutions, professionalism and human services have all contributed to depleting our communities, through the removal of people with disabilities from their families and social networks, reducing the opportunity for communities to embrace members with a disability. Today, human service workers often act as an interface between people with disabilities and the community, and for this reason their role can be vital to whether or not a marginalised person is merely present in the community or a real part of it. The situation of being present-yet-absent most commonly occurs whenever services see community inclusion merely as outings or programs, and marginalised people will always remain on the periphery of their community whenever services create separate groups, places, or activities for people with a disability.

On the other hand, there are many things that support services can do to increase the likelihood of people with disabilities playing a vital part of vital communities, and many of the articles in this edition of CRUcial Times provide insights, ideas and inspiration on these issues. But at the heart of vital communities are our own hearts and minds.