Debbie Lyall The Right to Work

‘Work is more fun than fun’
– Noel Coward

NOEL Coward may not be the most typical representative of the working man, but his axiom holds true. Most would agree that the opportunity to work is an essential element for a healthy lifestyle. Around 20% of working age adults in the UK have some kind of limiting, long-term illness, impairment or disability, and levels of employment for them are way below average. Of the one and a half million people with what are termed learning difficulties, less than 6% are in work. This depressing statistic has far- reaching repercussions: most often it leads to unfulfilled lives that lack choice, opportunities, challenges, socialising and friendships, and at worst it leads to a greatly increased chance of mental health illness. Things are better than they were. More inclusivity in education, particularly at the level of further education, combined with appropriate legislation and improvement in employment practices have led to a significant year- on-year increase in jobs for those with disabilities, but the challenge remains. It was from a background in further education that Debbie Lyall moved from teaching young people with learning disabilities and behavioural problems, to providing supported work opportunities for them, by setting up The Right To Work Community Interest Company (CIC). Working in partnership with local businesses and institutions, her organisation offers a range of opportunities for people who can and want to work, but need support to do so.

Though a long-term Arundel resident Debbie was born in Suffolk. Her father, descended from Devon fishermen, was working in the prison service, but decided to move south. As Debbie relates it he stopped off at the Battersea Dogs’ Home to pick up an Alsation and settled in Hampshire where he set up what was to become a highly successful security company. Despite a happy and comfortable home life Debbie reckons she had no role model for her own future, knowing no women who had careers, and with no expectation that anyone within her peer group could attend university. At her tough secondary school she did her best to stay in the background and left with minimal qualifications. But in the world of work she began to flourish. In a job selling advertising space for the West Sussex Gazette newspaper group, she so impressed a client from Whitbread’s Brewery that she landed up being offered the job she was supposed to be advertising. Once in post she credits her rapid promotion to the company’s need for female representation in an industry hitherto almost exclusively male, and she soon found herself running nationwide sales and management training. In due course she moved to work independently, running a cluster of two hundred pubs all over the country, one of which, significantly, was the Eagle in Tarrant Street.

Debbie insists that it was the friendliness of the people she met every day in Arundel that decided her to make her home here. With her track record in corporate training she was invited to lecture in business studies at Chichester College, at the same time gaining teaching qualifications, but it was a chance encounter at the college that set her off on what would become her principal mission. Taking a different route one day through the college buildings she found herself in the Learning Disabilities Department and was soon in conversation with two students with Downs Syndrome. Chichester, like most further education colleges, had built up provision for such students with learning disabilities in the wake of national policies to transfer students from special institutions into lives within the community which included education. Debbie was sufficiently intrigued to volunteer to help in the department, transferring to it in due course, and soon becoming the departmental manager.

Debbie moved to Highbury College, back to Chichester, and then back to Highbury, completing post-graduate studies in special needs education and developing a network of links with local companies, Social Services and other agencies. However this left Debbie increasingly dissatisfied with the low progression of her students into proper employment. Things came to a head when the College management backed out of a collaborative project planned with Staunton Country Park, Debbie made the bold decision to go it alone, setting up The Right to Work CIC. That initial project has been transformed into a major work opportunity for people with learning disabilities. Staunton is a 1000 acre Regency landscaped parkland and forest on the edge of Portsmouth, where through Debbie’s enterprise around 40 people each day do essential work and are seen as an integral and important part of the overall staff team. Jobs include growing and harvesting vegetables to be sold in the Staunton shop, lawn mowing, litter picking and garden maintenance, collecting and preparing firewood, and a range of other crafts connected with outdoor life. A whole new area of land is currently being developed as a community garden and orchard, and it would be difficult to imagine a more inspiring landscape in which to find employment.

The next project for The Right to Work to tackle was with Hewitt’s Cafe in Emsworth. Originally set up to provide a lunch club for local pensioners the cafe had worked previously with Debbie and her students. When the Community First charity which managed the cafe pulled out of the organisation Debbie was able to take it on, gradually extending its range of services. Persuading the elderly locals to feel comfortable being served by young people with learning disabilities was not too great a problem, and the cafe is now able to develop in its staff a whole range of hospitality and catering skills, from food preparation and cooking to customer service, cleaning and clearing. Debbie is at pains to stress how helpful the various authorities and agencies, such as Havant Council and local social services, have been in facilitating her activities, but it’s clear that behind the scenes of any such enterprise an enormous amount of sensitive and demanding work has to be done meeting and negotiating with the other interested parties.

The third main strand to the Right to Work CIC is the Art Invisible initiative, giving the opportunity to young people to develop their artistic potential within a vibrant design workshop. It’s been said that an artist is not a special kind of person, but that each person is a special kind of artist. The success of Art Invisible bears this out. Starting in premises at Staunton Park and moving later to rooms at Hewitt’s Cafe, those working with the Right to Work teams are supported and guided by talented artists who work hard to stretch and challenge each individual, giving artistic advice and increasing knowledge of famous artists and artistic styles – ensuring that everyone continues to develop and grow. Subjects include art and design in various media, with the artists benefiting from the sales of designed items in the Hewitt’s shop, or through sales of artworks wherever exhibition opportunities occur. In the early years Debbie would organise shows in Arundel, as part of the Festival Gallery Trail, but now the net is cast much wider, with the University of Chichester and a particularly strong collaboration with the Pallant House Gallery and its association with Outside In, a national charity that aims to provide a platform for artists who face significant barriers. It must have been enormously gratifying to all at The Right to Work to see the Director of the Art Invisible team awarded the British Empire Medal in the recent New Year’s Honours list for her work in this area. In addition to the success of the artists in terms of sales, Debbie has witnessed dramatic improvements in the individuals’ confidence and social skills. Some who at first would be unwilling to enter a room with other people in it are now active ambassadors for Outside In. In one of the most remarkable cases a young man whose difficult behaviour had alienated him from his own family has progressed to a stage where his father can now regard him as his best friend.

Under the current editorship The Bell has profiled well over a hundred Arundel individuals, all living interesting and productive lives. A few have known since childhood what they wanted to become, but in most cases their young selves would have been astonished to see where their careers would lead. The Right to Work enterprise is now well established, with a staff of 24 of whom 16 have learning disabilities, and a bright future. But how little idea Debbie would have had, as she took a random route home out of Chichester College, that a casual conversation with two young people would lead to such a fruitful outcome.