DISABILITY need not be a barrier to a busy working life, as former Blackburn College student Chris Houston has proved.

Pauline Hawkins met a young man who is assisting the Government in a new education project.

BLACKBURN Rovers fan Chris Houston is described by his workmates as an inspiration.

Everyone at the Blackburn Advice and Information Centre in Salford has a smile and a friendly word for the 20-year-old, and in return he flashes them a grin which lights up his face.

But he can't chat about football, nights out and the latest chart hits in the same way they talk to each other. Chris, who has cerebral palsy, cannot speak and has little control over his movements. He spends much of his time in a wheelchair.

However, Chris has a quick, analytical brain -- just what is needed in his job with Blackburn and Darwen Council, for whom he works on a 16-hours-a-week basis.

His work for Sure Start, a government-funded initiative promoting nursery education in the Mill Hill and Livesey wards of Blackburn with Darwen, involves him compiling database information and monitoring users of the service, how effective advertising has been and how effective the training programme is. His findings are then passed on to central government on a monthly basis for analysis.

Chris's work is PC-based and while he makes the decisions his support worker, John Walmsley, inputs the information.

Chris is able to carry out the work, and carry on a conversation with John, by the use of a series of "closed questions" which revolve around five key topics -- you, home, family, college and work. Having isolated the topic, John then asks other questions from which he will draw out Chris's answer. Technology has played an important part in Chris's career, and it is hoped he will soon have a more efficient means of communication -- a machine with a series of buttons which he will be able to press and send messages.

Chris, who lives in High Street, Oswaldtwistle, with his mum Jennifer, has two older brothers, John and Graham. He is a former pupil of Blackamoor special school in Roman Road, Blackburn, which amalgamated with the Dame Evelyn Fox school to become Newfield.

Chris met John Walmsley in 1998 when he took a course in distributive operations at the business and management faculty at Blackburn College. John is employed by the college at the faculty of student services which deals with learning support.

John became Chris's tutor and, after a grounding in administration skills, Chris went to work in the Salford advice centre on a two-week work placement as a clerical assistant. His efforts earned him the college's Work Right award, which covers workplace skills such as punctuality and dress code.

Blackburn with Darwen Council was so impressed with Chris's work that he was offered a further 12-month work placement from June 1999 to June 2000. "Then we arrived at the situation where he was offered work on a permanent 16-hours-a-week basis," John said.

For this arrangement to work, John is on secondment for 16 hours a week from the college.

He and Chris work together on four afternoons a week, and during the rest of his working week John is at the college teaching other students on a one-to-one basis.

John explained that Chris's duties during his initial placement involved ordering leaflets for the advice and information centre for distribution to the public on subjects such as benefits advice and housing. "When we first came here everybody was ordering leaflets. Chris set up a database and as a result they had very little wastage," John said.

John's secondment will last until June and he hopes that Chris will become more independent as time passes. It is expected that they will move out of the Salford office shortly and into one in Mill Hill.

John said: "Part and parcel of being a support worker is to withdraw from the student so they become independent.

" Hopefully it will set the standard for other people."