Articles 

 

In June 2005 the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) launched the Disability Debate, a major national debate on the future of disabled people's equality in Britain, which resulted in 2007 in the Disability Agenda.

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The role of independent advocacy in reducing inequality and improving the life chances of disabled people

Author: Sir Bert Massie, Disability Rights Commission Chair

Independent advocacy occurs when an independent person (i.e. not working for a party involved in service provision, a local authority or health organisation for example) supports a disabled person to speak up for him or herself or, if the disabled person is unable to do so, to communicate and represent the disabled person’s needs and wishes. The principal vision of our ‘Disability Agenda’ is - ‘a society in which all disabled people can participate fully as equal citizens’. The DRC believes the availability of independent advocacy services is crucial to achieving this vision – and much of the agenda of national and local governments across Great Britain.

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Double think? Commitment to independent living and reduced services

Author: Liz Sayce, Chief Executive, RADAR

The disability movement seems, at first glance, to have won the argument on independent living. Everyone (or almost everyone) – Government, social services organisations, disabled people – agrees that services to support disabled people should be based on choice, independence and control. The only problem is the gulf between rhetoric and real experience.

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Don’t stick it, stop it!

Author: Rachel Hughes, Campaigns Officer, Mencap

Eight out of ten children with a learning disability are bullied and are scared to go out because they are frightened of being bullied, a recent survey by leading learning disability charity Mencap has revealed.

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Creating an alternative future for our communities

Author: Sir Bert Massie, DRC Chair

In the coming weeks we will turn our attention to the question of community. The Government’s has set itself a clear vision of a society made up of ‘prosperous and cohesive communities, offering a safe, healthy and sustainable environment for all’. This means meeting the current and future challenges of our changing population, providing sufficient and suitable homes, encouraging people to play an active role in their communities and the delivery of their local services, and tackling the fear and hostility which exists in some of our communities towards disabled people in Britain today.

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Sheltered and factory employment for disabled people: what is the future?

Author: Liz Sayce, CEO, RADAR

The disability community recently hit upon an issue of real disagreement: Remploy’s plans to close or merge around half its 83 factories, in order to invest more in supporting disabled people in open employment, less in sheltered factory work.

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Accessible to all

Author: Lord Richard Best

Looking to the future, there are grounds for both optimism and pessimism. On the positive side, standards of accessibility are being pushed up for social housing.

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Housing - The designer’s view

Author: Wayne Hemingway, Chair of Building for Life and founder of Red or Dead and HemingwayDesign

I have always been into 'pensioner chic', I love my brown slacks, sensible shoes and my woolly cardi. If I wasn’t so modern as to buy all my food shopping online (a pre silversurfer?), I would leave Tesco pulling one of those bags on wheels with my leeks and cabbage sticking out the top. I’m looking forward to being a granddad, and with kids soon to move out of their teenage years it may not be that far off.

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Creating an alternative future for employment and skills

Author: Sir Bert Massie, DRC Chair

In the Disability Agenda published earlier this year, we made nearly forty recommendations to Government and stakeholders across the education system on how we thought they could make a positive impact on the lives of disabled people facing uncertain futures, poverty and exclusion, or who were frustrated in their ambition to ‘get on’ in work.

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Disability, skills and work: Why we must aspire to do better

Author: Stephen Evans, Chief Economist, Social Market Foundation

There has been much talk recently of the need for politicians to reconnect with people’s aspirations. But there has also been a less noticed recognition that low expectations of people can reduce their aspirations and so both cause and result from disadvantage.

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‘Nothing about us without us?’

Author: Peter John Farrington, DRC forum member

The need for full democratic participation in disability politics. The ‘Disabilty Agenda’ rightly has proactive participation at its heart.

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Disabled People and the Third Sector

Author: Mark Shrimpton, DRC Assistant Director Legal and Operations

As we lead up to the live web chat with the Minister for the Third Sector, Phil Hope, it is worth reminding ourselves that there are, perhaps, three key issues that relate to disabled people and the not for profit sector: the role and sustainability of disabled people’s organisations; involvement of disabled people as trustees, management committee members, employees and volunteers; the potential of public/voluntary sector partnerships.

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Making community safety a reality for people experiencing mental distress

Author: Anna Bird, Policy Officer, Mind

Building strong, safe communities is a must if we want people experiencing mental distress to have the opportunities the rest of the population takes for granted: the chance to meet people, feel at home, work, engage in leisure activities, build a family.

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Including Disabled People in Volunteering for All

Author: Lara Samuels, Campaigns Director Media Trust

One of the key target audiences for Volunteering for All consists of those who are disabled or who have limiting, long term illnesses. Our objective is to raise awareness within this group of volunteering, and all of the benefits that the individual can gain through participation within their local community.

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The Future of Housing – the RIBA view

Author: Steven Harding, Head of Public Affairs, RIBA

All of a sudden housing is top of the political agenda. The last Prime Minister to invest so much capital in housing was Harold Macmillan, and some might say we’re still paying for the mistakes made in the rush to build in the 1960s. Now it’s our job to ensure that as Gordon Brown brings housing back to the top of the to do list, those mistakes are not repeated.

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Justice for All

Author: Joanna Perry, Strategic Development Manager at Victim Support

The access to criminal justice debate has been a long time coming to the disability rights movement. Violence against disabled people both indoors and out is widespread and often serious yet, apart from a few important pieces of campaigning linking people’s experience of violence to actual criminal acts, activists, researchers and governments alike haven’t taken the necessary steps to assess the violence disabled people experience and redress the unequal access to justice and protection they face.

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