People First: Give And Take

Record ID: 120676
  • Title: People First: Give And Take
  • Date: 28th November 1994
  • Summary: Dave Lee is now paralysed in both legs following a car accident in 1990. His spinal injuries meant that he was no longer able to do many things, including one important activity: he could no longer play football with his young son. The depression that engulfed him was so great that he wrote what he calls his last letter to his wife but the carer who was with Dave at the time called the Spinal Injuries Association's telephone counselling line and handed him the phone. On Dave's darkest day, counsellor Richard Kember, who is himself a wheelchair user, was on the other end of the line. Says Dave, "He lifted a cloud up from me. I was able to get brighter and understand my own disability and with that I am able to help other people with disabilities". From the initial calls, Richard realised that Dave was expressing a deep sense of anger, energy that could be channelled into areas that could be of real use to him. In this case, peer counselling - counselling between disabled people - offered help related to the sudden shock of being disabled. It saved Dave's life. "The programme also shows how peer counselling has helped nine year old Andrew Mills who is severely disabled and has no speech. He related instantly to Bill Robins who has the same impairment and was helping at Andrew's school. GIVE AND TAKE shows how the two communicate through the use of Bliss symbolics, a language involving words, symbols and pictograms, the first time this technique has been featured on television. The programme also looks at other forms of counselling through which many disabled people seek, and find, help for more general emotional and inter-personal problems that may or may not be linked to their disability.
  • Description:Disabled counsellors using their skills to help both disabled and able-bodied people and the problems they have to overcome in order to counsel as a profession.
  • Broadcaster:Channel 4
  • Collection: Channel 4
  • Genre:Documentary and Factual
  • Producer:MENITEL PRODUCTIONS LTD
  • Programme Episode:Episode 1
  • Transmission Date:28/11/1994
  • Rights:On Request
  • Decade: 1990s
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