IRC-Galleria

Well, I have seen special needs children make better progress in learning and development than I have seen with the people dealing with my case in Kotka. I have actually seen children who have no hope whatsoever of attaining the academic achievements of social workers (and others who work in the social support system in this country) make quicker and better progress in taking on board knowledge and formulating ideas based on that knowledge compared to what I see in the people who are supposedly managing my my support. I was a non-teaching assistant in a special needs school, where we taught children who had moderate to severe learning difficulties how to manage in a supported living environment. We taught them how to get bathed by themselves; we taught them how to cook; we taught them how to manage their money reasonably well; and we taught them how to do many things connected with what were called 'activities of daily living'. And these children, by the time our school had finished with them (about two years in that group), had mastered enough of this to be able to live semi-independently, or in a group home setting without needing to be 'looked after' by people who would have to do everything for them, including - for example - wiping their arses.

So, after ten years, Sossu, Kela and TVT have actually found out that they really should be supporting me properly. I've been giving them information about my situation for the entire length of time I've lived in this country, and only now has it sunk in that they have not been doing it right.

Kela has now agreed to an assessment of working ability (oh, my fucking gods... only 10 years after a need for such was expressed... how quick! /sarcasm), and Työkkäri have realised that their main purpose should be to support me in finding proper work (fuck me, this is incredible bloody progress!!!!! /sarcasm).

Whilst these people have been taking a decade of my life to achieve this incredible learning curve (! /sarcasm), that same decade of my life has been wasted and I cannot get those ten years back. The work I could have done in those ten years is lost forever, as is the income I could have earned from that work. The career development that could have occurred during those ten years will never happen, because those career development opportunities no longer exist for that development to take place. My quality of life has changed in that time and not for the better: it has, in fact, deteriorated to the point where - because my income is so low that my possibilities are severely limited (pay rent; pay bills; buy food; buy study-related materials; have a social life... choose two) - I cannot say that I have a life at all. I am certainly in a worse position than I was on when I lived in the UK, immediately prior to moving to Finland.

So, in exchange for ten precious years of my life, the best that Kela, Sossu and Työkkäri can come up with is, essentially: 'oops, we should have done our jobs properly in the beginning!'

In a fifth of that time, children who had no hope of academic or vocational attainments that these people take for granted learned how to live effectively!

I am expected to see the outcome of today's meeting as a step forward. Against this background I have in educational sciences (adult education, inclusion, special education and educational psychology), however, I cannot.

I'm feelign so utterly insulted and disappointed that I cannot really think of anything else to say. It's not that words continue to fail me: it's that Sossu, Kela and Työkkäri do.