Lecture at West University of Timisoara for social work and psychology students, October 2025.
How do you build inclusion?
Through support to a person to have a place to live, things to do and people to see.
In other words through social roles and relationships.
But most people in institutions don’t have anything resembling a ‘normal’ social role, as we normally we.
I am a speaker here right now, but I am also a husband, a father, a footballer (ehm).
We are many things to many people and that makes us who we are.
People in institutions are deprived of this. They are seen as nothing more than service users. This deprives them of huge part of their humanity. Because our humanity is tied to our social roles, it is tied to the ways we matter to the people around.
No amounts of work within the institutions, no amounts of mainly ‘fake’ therapy and “activisation” in there will make any real difference to their lives.
People need to be supported to move our and establish a new life with social roles and relationships.
To have a place to live, people to see and thugs to do.