Auckland Disability Providers Network Inc.

Many of you will know Ray Murray, Formerly Director, Centre for Special Education,
Auckland College of Education. Here is Ray’s account of his activities since he moved to Ireland.

I moved to Dublin, Ireland in November 2004, expecting to take up the role of house husband and support to my wife, Patricia O’Brien. Patricia had won a position as the first Director of the National Institute for Intellectual Disability at the University of Dublin, Trinity College with a brief to promote better lives for people with intellectual disability through education, research and advocacy. Within eighteen months I found I was launched into a second career in disability.

For the first year in Dublin we had a compact staff flat at Trinity Hall the residence for first year students 4ks from the main campus in the centre of the city. We lived below 14 young men enjoying their first year at university. Such is the dedication of Trinity students that we were never disturbed during our time there. A fond memory of our time at Trinity Hall was the day it snowed Patricia, who until we married lived in Melbourne had never seen snow falling. That day it was a delight to see the young Asian women, in the adjoining flat, who ran out and danced in the falling snow.

As our flat was small and compact the housekeeping duties were soon attended to so I had a lot of time on my hands. I enjoyed exploring the affluent and leafy area around Trinity Hall on foot and soon became familiar with the surrounding suburbs of Rathmines, Rathgar, Ranelagh and Milltown. I was pleased to find that as a senior citizen I was entitled to a travel pass which allowed me to travel free on the light rail which passed the end of our street, buses and trains to any part of the island of Ireland. When our time came to leave Trinity Hall we were pleased to find a lovely town house to rent around the corner in the same area of Dublin 6.

During the first quarter of 2005 Patricia and colleagues at the Institute had developed a course for students with intellectual disability which was to be piloted at the university. As the funding for the Institute had been obtained through grants from philanthropic organisations and was in short supply I was called on to teach two of the course modules in a voluntary capacity. About the same time NAMHI (The National Association for the Mentally Handicapped of Ireland) now called Inclusion Ireland was looking for someone to develop and teach a module on Self-Advocacy within a small, but progressive service in Dublin. I was approached to do this and the project extended for a morning once a fortnight for over two terms. This involvement with service users, once we became familiar with each other’s accents, was very satisfying and reminded me of the role I’d had with People First in Auckland when I retired.

A New Zealander, Margaret Galvin, from the Waikato who had lead a project to restructure children’s disability services for the the Mid-Western Health Board, Limerick contracted me to assist with developing the final report for the project. This in turn led to an invitation to provide professional supervision for the Early Intervention Specialists (EIS) working for the Board. I have been doing this very enjoyable task for more than two years. It involves travelling to Limerick each month for two days and providing one to one supervision. In addition every three months I provide a seminar to the EISs on a topic that we agree together. In Ireland systematic provision of early intervention is not available nor is any specific training available.

As the Institute’s contribution to the Trinity College’s extramural programme I developed and cofacilitated the delivery of a short course (two hours per week for eight weeks) entitled “An Introduction to Person Centred Group Facilitation”. This course has now been delivered six times and each time it has been over subscribed creating a waiting list for the next delivery. While many of those attending this training have been from the disability sector there have also been a number of others from various community organisations creating an interesting mix of participants. There have been two interesting outcomes for me from this course leading to further work opportunities. Following the first delivery of the course I was approached by a Probation Officer who had been on the course. He asked me to consider running a course for inmates of the prison where he worked. At first I said “no” that I preferred to work in the disability sector. However he was very persistent and persuasive and eventually I agreed. A course entitled “Living Successfully” was approved by the prison governor. This was delivered (two hours per week for ten weeks) over the summer when the prison school was closed and no other courses were being offered. Fifteen men all serving life sentences were selected to attend. I found the course I’d been reluctant to deliver to be among the most satisfying and deeply moving work I’d ever undertaken and I’m now looking forward to the followup day in January.

Another work opportunity arose from the Facilitation Skills course when an approach was made by the co-ordinator of person centred planning (PCP) at the Daughters of Charity Services. This large organisation provides service to a large number of people with intellectual disability in several areas in the south of the Republic of Ireland. She was seeking a way to bring staff on board for the PCP. Together we decided that a four day module on person centredness was needed. I duely developed a proposal for this which was accepted. I was then asked to give three deliveries of the module – one in Limerick and two in Dublin. Preparing this module reminded me that I had been deeply grounded in person centredness when I trained as a psychologist where we spent many hours watching films of Carl Rogers demonstrate non-directive counselling/therapy.

A follow on to this work occurred last week when the same organisation asked me to deliver a one day workshop on “Achieving Community Membership for Service Users”. This was delivered in Dublin with staff attending from Limerick and Roscrea as well as Dublin.

A particularly satisfying work opportunity arose in a similar way to the examples above. Following the delivery of a PATH (Planning Alternative Tommows with Hope) Training workshop delivered with Debbie Espiner of the University of Auckland while she was working at the Institute on a short project I was approached to facilitate individual PATHs for service users in a small service in North Tipperary. This led to 63 PATHs over a period of fifteen months.

More exciting however has been the opportunity to work with the service to change in order to enable the service users achieve their goals and have a greater presence in the community. The service has now decided to use their own staff to facilitate the process for the remaining service users and have asked me to deliver a series of modules to provide inservice training for staff over the next year.

Being in Ireland has resulted in many marvellous experiences such as visiting France often, visiting the church in Northern Ireland where my grandmother was baptised and married (her nationality enabled me to obtain an Irish passport) and visiting Russia for Easter. However the greatest benefit is that Patricia and I are close to our grandchildren. Evie (6) and Harry (3) live across the Irish sea in a little village called Winterbourne Stoke near Stonehenge and we are able to visit often, and they us, and provide some support as Evie is severely disabled as she has Rett Syndrome. I often say “no” to work so that I can go and look after Evie (and sometimes Harry) while their parents have a break.

It has be something of a surprise to find myself so busy as this stage of my life but it has been very satisfying to find that the knowledge and skills acquired over the years are valued and can be of benefit to others. A really enjoyable aspect is that I just turn up to do the work and I don’t have to be involved in lengthy meetings or politics.
Ray Murray.