In this guest blog, Beyond Empower founder Ben Andrews tells us about their work to transform mainstream spaces, communities and leisure services so that they’re accessible to people with disabilities. By thinking differently about the barriers, Beyond Empower help providers, councils and businesses create services that everyone in the community can access and enjoy.
Learning disability hate crime is a problem that is under-reported but can have a huge impact on victims. Dimensions’ #ImWithSam campaign is led by an expert with lived experience and takes a multi-pronged approach to the problem. They support victims, raise awareness, train police forces, work with the CPS and influence policy to improve reporting, convictions and ensure victims are taken seriously.
Come and join the virtual tour of Clarissa: a film created to improve the health of people affected by homelessness, through better understanding of their experiences. Clarissa is a fiction film, but the storyline has been woven together from real experiences of people trying to access the healthcare system while facing homelessness in the UK.
We’re sharing this call on behalf of NHS England and NHS Improvement for this fantastic Leadership for Personalised Care programme. It’s an inspiring and engaging development opportunity open to teams and individuals from the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector.
Find out more about this “learning by doing” project, where the team worked collaboratively with artists, makers, library staff, residents and more to innovate and test ways to help digital arts thrive in St. Helens.
Read about how the idea of a handwritten “letter fae a local” has sparked a huge community endeavour to welcome and embrace asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow. In the face of attacks on the rights of asylum seekers, these community-led organisations are trying to support new arrivals and connect them with their neighbours.
Mother and carer Eleanor September shares the experiences that led her to participate in Ideas Alliance’s recent project on Closed Cultures. Read about the uphill struggle she has faced to access person-centred care since her daughter was born at 24 weeks almost 28 years ago.
Trainer Lourdes Colclough highlights an extraordinary new role being carried out by members of the community in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: informal trauma and grief counselling. She tells us about the training being offered to those stepping up to fill gaps in formal mental health support.
As part of the Ending Women’s Homelessness campaign, women experiencing homelessness were given disposable cameras and worked with a local photographer to document their experiences. The result is an emotional and eye-opening photography exhibition currently hosted at the Brighton Fringe Festival.
