Ramps

Ramps are becoming more common in our churches, either as fixed or permanent features, or temporary ramps that are laid out 'when the need arises'. Ramps are not only there for wheelchair users, but also for people who find steps difficult, this may include the less mobile due to some form of disability, or sometimes people who are finding that with age it is not so easy to cope with steps. Of course ramps can also be very useful for other people such as those with pushchairs, or even for those people who are making deliveries. All in all ramps can be beneficial as access to our church buildings and other buildings such as church halls.

From much experience as a wheelchair user I can say that there is nothing less welcoming than a church that does not have access for a person who relies on a wheelchair. I must also comment that being ‘sent around the side’ of the building to another door is degrading!

Every church wants to make new people, and visitors, welcome; well that is the Christian theme of love for after all. So being faced with a step, if you cannot do steps, is not a good start. It is also most embarrassing when a person has to wait for the ramp to be put out for them. I am always appreciative when this is done for me, especially to the poor person that has to struggle with the contraption, but I am embarrassed none the less. I have also had to wait to get out of churches when the ramp has been taken up after I am in, because clearly I am the only wheelchair user to be using that church that day.

Now there are health and safety issues:

1. Person putting ramp out, noting I am in a wheel chair due to a manual handling injury.

2. Ramp user driving off edge, particularly if it is a ‘home made ramp.

3. Will the ramp take the wait of the chair and user? Many electric wheelchair’s, and scooters are very heavy because of the batteries they carry.

4. Storage, where to keep the ramp when not in use; and No! Not in the disabled access toilet!!

Permanent ramps have to be the only solution. But these take planning and finance. If the church is used for weekly external activities, there may be funding streams that can be applied for. Otherwise it has to be regarded as a legitimate expense that the church must cost in as part of its mission and ministry. Legal permission will be needed, and advice sort, so do not just do it, especially if your church building is listed!

This is just a brief start on a huge subject, I hope it gets you thinking.

Cite this article as: Fr. Jeffrey A.Leach.CBV, "Church Ramps" in Disabling Barriers to Church Blog, 02 September 2016, http://disablingbarrierstochurch.blogspot.co.uk/

Dangerous Gas Fitters

Although this Blog is dedicated to helping disable those barriers that exist in our churches that prevent anyone from developing a life within a worshiping community, there are other issues that must be mentioned that our churches, and the vulnerable need to be aware of. The following is one such instance where the Health and Safety Executive has reported on a case of an unregistered gas fitter. This is a major problem, and one that potentially threatens life if the unscrupulous fitters make a very poor attempt at fitting gas pipes together.

“An unregistered gas fitter has been sentenced for illegally installing a gas boiler and undertaking landlord’s gas safety checks at a tenanted property. The boiler he installed was later classed as dangerous.

Christian Winter, 35, trading as CJS Winter Plumbing & Heating Services of Ashburton, Devon installed the gas boiler at a property on Park Road, Kingskerswell. He then undertook landlord’s gas safety checks at the tenanted property despite him having no competencies in gaswork or being registered with Gas Safe Register for any gaswork.

Further he then deceived the landlord of the property by using a fictitious Gas Safe Register registration number on the landlord’s gas safety records he produced.

Exeter Crown Court heard Mr Winter’s illegal gaswork came to light when the boiler he had installed and which he then passed as safe over the next three years was inspected by a properly registered member of Gas Safe. The gas engineer found a number of faults on the gas installation and classed the gaswork as dangerous.

On investigation the Health and safety Executive (HSE) found Christian Winter had used fraudulent Gas Safe registered details to deceive the landlord. When the landlord was informed of the defects she challenged Christian Winter but he continued to lie to her by stating that he was a registered gas engineer.

Mr Winter, Westabrook, Ashburton, Devon pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 3(3) and 3(7) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was given a suspended prison sentence of 12 months; ordered to undertake 200 hours unpaid work and to pay £3,327.80 costs.”

Disabled Access Toilets: Disabled Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities

If you have not read the posting that talks about disabled access toilets in general please do so (below). This posting is written with a presumption that it follows on from the previous. Please note the general, obvious, and very sensible issue about child and vulnerable person safety note below *.

So now you have secured your disabled access toilet for differently abled people, and stopped using it as a general store. It is clean and tidy and you have provided adequate facilities inside, including hot and cold water, or have you? Have you thought about the needs of children with disabilities? Have you also thought of the needs of adults with learning disabilities that need to use disabled access toilets? Possibly not, but do not panic, this is not one of those moments when you have to dash back to the planning stage and start over, because when someone new comes to your place of worship with particular needs they will also come along with an expert; their parents or guardians or even carers^#.

Do not think of this as a problem, an issue or even a nuisance, it isn’t; it is welcome, it is about being inclusive, it is what we do - we look after one of our own. It is the privilege of welcoming one of God’s own into our family.

So let us go back to the toilet question. Well in short you need to just allow the parent, guardian or carer’s room and space to bring with them whatever equipment they may need. This equipment may take up space and must be available during services should their child or adult with learning difficulties require the toilet. So this may be one of the few occasions where something may be kept in the disabled access toilet by the parent or guardian. Clearly if the equipment restricts room space a lot then alternative storage needs to be made very close to the disabled access toilet as the facility will still need to be available to other users.

Consideration should be made to the fact that a child or a person with learning disabilities requiring disabled access toilets may need to be changed, clothing wise, so the toilet area may need to be big enough to facilitate this. Of course this may create a dilemma as often disabled access toilets are not designed with changing larger children, or adults in mind. If it isn’t large enough then what other facility adjacent to the toilet can be offered? There may well be another room adjacent to the toilet that is private and clean where the parent, guardian or carer would feel comfortable. Asking the question early on when they start to attend the church helps. 1. It shows the church cares and wants to be pro-active in its relationship. 2. It gives the church a chance to rethink what can be done otherwise.

Dependent where the disabled access toilet is located it is possible to have curtain rails in the corridor outside creating a larger space, so when the toilet door is open no one can see in. The rail would need to be three sided protruding outwards to give the additional space, so this would not work in a corridor.

Alternatively a church may need to consider its main toilet facilities and how often they are used, would it be possible to create a second larger disabled access toilet inside the main toilets?

If you have no other space within the church, of church hall that would be appropriate then would an extension be answer. Toileting is a basic human need, if we cannot provide this then we are failing badly, and it would be sad to see the new family leave and shake our sand from their shoes.

* Now I am going to state that which should not need to be stated, but I am going to do it anyway. When it comes to toileting children or young people only their parents, guardians or carers can do this no one else from the church no matter your DBS standing. Never allow yourself, or someone from your church, to be put into a position by a parent or guardian whereby you are left with the child or young person even though you have the parents or guardians permission. It is not right, safe or appropriate. This will also apply to adults who are vulnerable and have carers, be they family or professional people.

^#One word of clarification. When speaking about children and adults with learning disabilities in this post, I refer only to those who need to use disabled access toilets, and who may have continence problems. There is no intention here of inferring that children who are disabled, or adults with learning disabilities have continence as this is clearly not the case.

Cyber Faud and the vulnerable

Cyber Freud is a risk to all who use the internet, particularly those who are not as aware of the risks involved in what they are doing. So advice from the i newspaper is very timely particularly for people who are house bound and those who rely very much on internet shopping, banking etc. The very people who are often the most vulnerable in society, and yet are the ones picked on.

Cyber Freud: Advice from the i newspaper, plus a little more:

• Never give personal details on the phone if someone phones you up asking. Even if they have already lots of information such as your address, date of birth, even the last four digits of your credit/debit card – this they can hack.
• Use three random words for you password, which protects against hacking software. Use of upper case and lower case and numbers randomly placed helps.
• Change passwords regularly, use different ones for different applications.
• Do not record passwords where others can find them!
• Avoid clicking on embedded suspicious emails, if you do not recognise them don’t open, delete!
• Be careful about what you post online, identity theft is a huge problem.
• Carry regular updates of security and good security software.
• Keep a close eye on your bank account.

Health and Safety digging near electric cables; and Employer Liability Insurance

I want to share with you all a couple of very interesting health and safety cases that local church’s need be aware of. I know this Blog is dedicated to disabilities but safety and health affects all of us so please allow me a little elbow room.

As is often the case the cases referred to are speaking about private organisations that are set up to generate income and profit, but places of worship do fall under the same health and safety legislation and should therefore be aware of these serious matters.

The first is about a joiner who was replacing fence posts in domestic properties for his employer. The joiner struck an underground cable receiving an electric shock. This could easily had led to death, but in this instance, thankfully, did not. The employer was found guilty of failing to protect its employee from being exposed to a foreseeable risk. The fine and costs came to over £15,000. Not a sum any church council I know could afford.

Comment: Churches do have buried services, i.e. electric cables, water pipes, and gas pipes. Some of these may be on plans of the church property. But even if they are often the plans are not precise, believe me this is my area of expertise and I am still amazed how wrong plans can be. When such work is planned a risk assessment is necessary, and the possibility of such hazards being present must be noted. Actions may be to get an organisation in to map the services for you, but costly. Or to dig with great care, not with heavy spades, less costly but the confidence of no injury would need to be much higher. That is what the risk assessment is all about, not just a paper exercise.

The second Case:

Quite simple, and one I have written about before. Employer Liability Insurance.

The law requires that any employer has Employer Liability Insurance, so where a church pays someone to clean the church, garden, verger, bookkeeping and so on even if it is only for a couple of hours per week it is an employer employee relationship hence Employer Liability Insurance is required; see - https://www.gov.uk/employers-liability-insurance

Recently a restaurant in Maidstone found themselves over £3,000 worse off after going to court for failing to have Employer Liability Insurance, and no doubt that they have now forked out for the insurance.

Comment: Interestingly if any of their employees has had an accident over the past three years and makes a claim against the restaurant the owner will have a shock; a very costly shock! This is why we need such an insurance cover, often churches will find that they are covered as part of their general policy – but this must be checked and then the certificate of Employer Liability Insurance must be displayed. We should never consider Employer Liability Insurance as a problem but rather as a friend, for if things do go wrong and someone working for us is injured then the insurance could be worth more than its weight in gold.

Case one: HSE v Berneslai Homes Ltd [2015] (http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/company-sentenced-after-employee-received-electric-shock/ Accessed 07/10/2015)

Case Two: HSE v Hasret Sasmaz, trading as Starburger [2015] (http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/restaurant-owner-fined-over-employer-liability-insurance/ Accessed 07/10/2015)

Safety and health bariers; and disabled people

Health and Safety has to be a consideration for all places of worship, unfortunately in many cases it can become a paper exercise which is seen as something we must do rather than something that is so very important. It is important because people matter!! It is because people matter that we want to protect them from any form of harm, be it muscular damage to backs from lifting things, to bad wrist and shoulders sitting at computers. Unfortunately ‘accidents’ as we sometimes call them, happen.

As a former senior safety practitioner I understood that accidents did not happen but rather negligence happened, and often it was that negligence that lead to harm.

Places of worship have their share of people injured; I have seen it often over the years. I have also seen fire damage to churches, which can be repaired but the fear factor can seldom be forgotten, and in addition to the potential to the loss of life or serious injury, the loss of certain precious items that have been donated can equally never be replaced.

Now I have included below a copy of a report from the Health and Safety Executive, it speaks for itself. I ask you to think more widely than about the barriers in the report and to consider other such obstacles, particularly glass doors left open which cannot always be clearly seen.

Also do not forget anything placed in a route that is normally clear which can become a high risk obstacle to someone with visual impairments.

Council fined after man killed by swing barrier

Date:  11 September 2015 Health and Safety Executive

North Lincolnshire Council has been fined after a man died when his car drove into a horizontal swing barrier gate to a car park at a sports ground.

Hull Crown Court heard how, in August 2012, Andrew Matthews, aged 51 and a father of two, had gone to Foxhills sports ground in Scunthorpe to watch his son play football. The horizontal barrier had been opened earlier, but was not secured so it swung into a dangerous position.

As Mr Matthews drove his car towards the gate, the horizontal end section of the barrier went through the windscreen striking him on the head, causing fatal injuries.

North Lincolnshire Council, of Ashby Road, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire was fined a total of £160,000, and ordered to pay £40,476 in costs after pleading guilty to an offence under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

HSE Principal Inspector Chris Gallagher said of the case: “The tragic loss of Mr Matthew’s life was a horrific incident that could so easily have been avoided. The barrier should have been secured whilst it was open so that it could not swing into his path in such a way that he was unable to see it as he drove towards it.

“A significant number of people have been killed or injured in incidents involving horizontal swing barriers in car parks used in retail, leisure and industrial premises. Duty holders should carry out a suitable risk assessment so that potential dangers are identified and suitable precautions are put in place. These include making sure such barriers can be locked open and shut to suitable fixing posts preferably with a padlock so they cannot swing open and present an impalement risk ”

(http://press.hse.gov.uk/2015/council-fined-after-man-killed-by-swing-barrier/ accessed 12/09/2015)

Harvest 2015

Harvest 2015

Do you know any adults with learning difficulties who would like to join harvest celebrations in the Telford Area? (Lichfield Diocese)

Harvest Saturday 3^rd October 2-4 pm at All Saint Church, Lychgate Walk, Wellington, Telford, TF1 3HA.

All friends and carers are welcome, please let the organisers know you are coming on: tc@lichfield.anglican.org or, Telephone: 01922 707864