Barton and Megan training in Budo Taijutsu in Alabama.
This past week, we were given the opportunity to give the keynote presentation for West Virginia’s People First Conference. We had the pleasure of addressing 200+ people on “Staying Safe in the Community,” and what that entails for people with disabilities, their direct support and their family members. Much of our discussion focused on the importance of developing a greater awareness of one’s surroundings in order to not only recognize potential danger before something happens, but more importantly, to define one’s own safe space.
One participant described this space as a bubble around someone that is unquestionably one’s own. For many people who have disabilities and rely on the assistance of others from many daily living tasks, maintaining the space may not often be as clear-cut as others who don’t rely on the same level of support.
Because of this, it becomes all the more important that people with disabilities have a clearly defined sense of what is and is not acceptable for those around them to do. It is equally important for them to have the skills, ability and courage to be able to reinforce these boundaries when necessary.
While there are many levels to this, many of which may be considered self-advocacy skills, Megan and I had the chance to go beyond what is often covered in other type of advocacy training and address issues of personal safety and protection in direct and tangible ways. Working with smaller groups of participants in several breakout sessions, Megan and I took participants through exercises to enhance their awareness, set their own safe space and protect themselves if that space was not honored. Each person, no matter what their initial level of ability was, came away with a more defined sense of empowerment and ability to act.
It is such an incredible experience to witness the transformations that occurs in others when they are not only given the tools to empower themselves, but also have the space to explore these tools and discover their own capacity to survive and thrive in an overwhelming situation.
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