Farm factor making a difference in Co Tipperary

James O’Meara is 24 and wakes every morning eager to get to Knocklofty, the RehabCare Resource centre 10 miles from his home in Garnavilla, Cahir.

James has Down’s Syndrome so routine and variety are very important to him.

From a farm, he is a bit uncomfortable with big animals and big machines, so the environment at Knocklofty, with a smaller variety of animals and light farming, is ideal for him.

Feeding the ducks and cleaning them out are his favourite tasks.

“I like the ducks because they’re handy,” he tells me.

Other days he may be occupied with goat, calf, hen or pig care, depending on his roster. His day will also include indoor work, computer classes, sport and arts and crafts. His family are delighted with his progress at the centre.

“It’s a marvellous centre. It’s rural and so safe and the staff are so caring,” says his mother, Helen. “James comes home with a smile on his face every day.”

There are 11 residents in the Knocklofty complex and 17 people (three women and 14 men) who attend during the day, Monday to Friday.

“They are so motivated here,” Helen says. “James is in much better form at home since he started coming here. They all have to do their chores but they’re working as a team and developing each task as they go and making progress. James loves the job of emptying the dishwasher. I’d often ask him when he comes home to empty ours and he’d say: ‘Mam. I’m only after emptying the one in Knocklofty. Yours can’t be full again.”

James’ brother Gerard was taking time out from tillage and contracting work to attend the open day.

“It was important for James that we be here,” Gerard says. “He was texting me to make sure I didn’t forget.

Without this place, James’s future wouldn’t be that bright, to be honest. At home we just wouldn’t have the variety of things for him to do.”

James has matured a lot in his six years at Knocklofty, Gerard believes.

“He was a chap when he came here. Now he’s so much more independent, using his mobile phone and handling money, for example. He’s learning all the time.”

James’s sister Elaine, a teacher, agrees.

“If James didn’t have this, he’d probably be suffering from depression because he’d have no motivation to get up in the morning. He loves taking off somewhere and meeting people. Here, he is able to get involved with the animals, do a bit of cookery, everything.”

Miriam Cleary is the community services manager at Knocklofty.

“We’re unique in that the vision for this place came from rural and farming parents who wanted to have a rural rather than an urban resource centre for their adult children with disabilities,” she says.

“Their sons and daughters would have been attending Scoil Chormaic or other RehabCare centres and they wanted to offer something different, where people could come in here and get experience every day of working with animals.”

The complex is based on the Camphill model that adopts a holistic approach to supporting individuals with disability.

“We want to support people with physical and intellectual disabilities to increase their independence and confidence so that they have a better quality of life,” Miriam says.

The centre is RehabCare and HSE-funded and cost €2.4m to build. It opened in 2007.

Activities

“There is a variety of activities for clients,” she says. “As well as the farm activities and growing vegetables, we’ve computer classes, crafts, pottery, soccer, literacy, yoga, kun chi as well as independent-living training activities like basic cookery, hygiene skills, personal development and self-esteem building.”

A lot of work is done around internet and phone safety, she adds.

“These are things that wouldn’t have been an issue in the past. A lot of our service users would be vulnerable to those things so staff have now had extra training in those elements.”

Marcus McGrath is a resident who lives in the complex and it was his farming dad, Donal, who donated the land for the development.

“Marcus has cerebral palsy and epilepsy so he needs 24/7 care,” Donal says.

“Every parent of a child with special needs worries about what’s going to happen to them in the future, so I’m delighted that this kind of facility is available for him.”

Donal makes light of the land donation.

“If I hadn’t given the land, it would have been got somewhere else,” he says. He credits Monica Shannon, principal of Scoil Chormaic and the parent-led Tipperary Association for special needs, for getting the idea for the centre up and running.

“It was the school and the parents getting together with the dream of this place – a rural centre for rural people.

“We wanted the ethos of agriculture, the therapeutic value of looking after animals and doing outdoor work for our children,” he says.

Donal doesn’t have to be inside the complex to know that staff and service users are happy, he adds.

“I own that land outside the ditch there and I know how well this place is going because I see them – staff and clients – and they have a pep in their step. That’s how I know. The hardest thing in this kind of place is to get the right combination of staff and we have that. They are unreal. Parents are not involved day-to-day but we help out with a bit of fundraising on days like this,” he says.

Catherine O’Brien is wearing jodhpurs, ready to give a horse-riding display on Kitty, the Knocklofty pony. Although not from a farming background, she much prefers outdoor work to indoor tasks.

“I like grooming Kitty, walking her out, cleaning her stable and doing up her hay nets,” she tells me. “I help with the other animals as well but she is my favourite.”

The money raised from selling vegetables at the open day will be spent by those who did the work, manager Miriam says, as we check out the vegetable stalls.

“Democracy rules. They’ll decide what to do with it, whether it’s for days out – they’re big into rugby and GAA – or items they’d like to have at the centre like equipment.”

lOCAL SUPPORT

Local support was evident on that sunny day in the Knockmealdowns, too, from FAS help to the pig-on-a-spit burgers provided by Hotel Minella to the Order of Malta staff and vehicles looking and sounding impressive in the upper yard.

The sensory garden, built by a team of interns at Abbott Vascular in Clonmel, was there to be seen too, near the pens where Sally the rescue dog and Blackie the goat were drawing in visiting children’s attention.

Brian Pollard (29) and his mum Caitriona were in charge of the jam-selling hut, while dad Tom, a farmer and member of Tipperary vintage club, was manoeuvring vintage cars into position in the lower yard to add to the overall colour on the day.

“We’re so blessed,” Caitriona Pollard says.

“We drive up here in the morning and the feelgood factor that the guys have, being out in the open – it’s wonderful.”

Brian is almost 29 and, like James, went to Scoil Chormaic School for special needs in Cashel until he was 18 years old. Brian then went to the urban version of the centre in Clonmel – Bridgewater House – but loved the transition to the more rural Knocklofty.

“He loves the animals and the gardening,” his mother says. “They grow their own vegetables here which makes them aware of healthy food. There is huge excitement here today as they sell their own produce.”

The Pollards are particularly delighted that education continues at the centre.

“Not alone are they working, but they do their literacy as well which is super. Brian can use an iPad now. It’s marvellous.”

Caitriona is delighted that the wider community come out in droves to support the centre each open day.

“You’re talking community awareness of people with disabilities, which is so important. Like I said, we are totally blessed.”