Saba Salman is a social affairs journalist and commissioning editor who writes regularly for The Guardian. Saba is a trustee of the charity Sibs, which supports siblings of disabled children and adults, and an RSA fellow. She is a former Evening Standard local government and social affairs correspondent.
2Decks, who will be on stage at the Rock House Festival (photo by Paul Mansfield)A new festival opens this weekend, featuring some of the biggest names in the integrated music scene, uniting learning disabled and non-learning disabled musicians.
The Rock House Festival in Brighton, promoted by learning disability-led arts charity Carousel, is expected to attract a crowd of 150-200 people.
The line-up includes Zombie Crash – the groundbreaking metal band that I’ve written about in the past (I was impressed back then by their “shouty, sweary, noisy chaos, big stage personas, a self-proclaimed kick-ass attitude, loud drums, screeching guitars and songs about fighting and sex”…who wouldn’t be?).
Zombie Crash, who will perform at Saturday’s Rock House Festival (photo by Paul Mansfield)
Other names at the new festival, which takes place at music venue The Green Door Store, include 2Decks, The Daniel Wakeford Experience,(who some might recognise from the Channel 4 show The Undateables). Fellow performers include prince vaseline and Sauna Youth. The festival’s wide ranging musical genres include rock, punk, blues, soul, jazz and rock/rap crossover.
Daniel Wakeford, performing at Saturday’s Rock House Festival (photo: Carousel Arts)The band prince vaseline (photo Carousel Arts)
The inaugural event has been sparked by the successful monthly Rock House nights at music venue The Green Door Store.
For the last eight years, the accessible Rock House nights have attracted crowds of up to 100 and feature one non-learning disabled band, alongside up to five learning disabled bands.
Musician Tom Cook and promoter Richard Phoenix, who runs community interest company Constant Flux, launched the monthly band nights eight years as a showcase for the learning disabled musicians they worked with.
It’s hoped the new festival will become an annual fixture in the UK summer festival scene.
* Festival venue The Green Door Store has wheelchair access and wheelchair accessible toilets. For ticket information, see the festival website.
My write up in the Guardian today looks at the condition, which is regarded as relatively rare. Public awareness of MS is low, but recent innovations in treating and assessing MS are creating a fresh focus on the disease.
Research suggests, for example, that MRI scans – already used in diagnosis – may be useful in predicting how MS will progress. In addition, a new drug therapy just approved in the US offers help for symptoms in the most chronic form of the condition. But, given that the drug has yet to be licensed in Europe, can the UK keep up with the latest innovations in the treatment of MS?
This was the backdrop to a recent roundtable discussion, supported by biotech company Sanofi Genzyme. Are the tools for assessing MS fit for purpose? How can early diagnosis and treatment be sped up? What matters to patients?
You can read the views of MS specialists, health experts, campaigners and people with MS on these issues in the full piece here.
Step Live performance, Southbank, London, July 2016
On Monday, the UK’s largest inclusive secondary school dance programme puts on its annual festival of youth dance at London’s Southbank. Over 700 young people from across London and Essex will be involved in the performance.
Step Into Dance is a partnership between grant-making organisation the Jack Petchey Foundation and the Royal Academy of Dance. The scheme runs extra-curricular classes and performance opportunities across London and Essex, enabling young dancers to develop their talent and mix with a diverse range of people.
The project reaches 200 mainstream and special needs schools a year and since its launch 10 years ago, has worked with hover 50,000 young people.
The gallery of images here show the project’s regional performance events and last year’s live festival.
Step Into Dance at the Quest Academy, Croydon. Photo: Alicia Clarke
Step Into Dance at the Quest Academy, Croydon.Photo: Alicia Clarke
Step Into Dance at the Quest Academy, Croydon.Photo: Alicia Clarke
Pupils at Park View School, Haringey, London.Photo: Alicia Clarke
Pupils at Park View School, Haringey, London.Photo: Alicia Clarke
Park View School, Haringey, London.Photo: Alicia ClarkeStep Live performance, Southbank, London, July 2016.Photo: Mark Lees
Adrienne Armorer at a Step Change Studios session (photo: Step Change Studios)
Step Change Studios is the first dedicated pan-disability inclusive Latin and Ballroom dance class in London.
On Saturday, the Westminster-based school kicks off one of many summer season showcases at the Liberty festival at the Olympic Park .
Forthcoming summer appearances include performances and workshops at the Together Fest at the Arts Depot in North London on July 22. The school will also put on an inclusive dance demo at the Disability Sports Coach Summer Festival in West London on July 28.
The pioneering project’s last class before the summer break is on Saturday, and founder Rashmi Becker stresses there are no restrictions on ability, in terms of who can join in.
Step Change, which is based at the Abbey Centre and launched earlier this, is open to all. As Rashmi, a disability advocate as well as a dance specialist, explains: “We have people with learning disabilities, autism, wheelchair users with different physical and neurological conditions such as MS and cerebral palsy, people with visual impairments, young and older people…There are simple things I do to enable people to join in – for example I meet people with visual impairments at the station and support them to the dance space”.
Adrienne Armorer, for example, gave up her beloved salsa 10 years ago after developing the physically debilitating condition multiple sclerosis (MS). But she has taken up dancing again through Step Change, after hearing about the project through her local MS society.
Here’s how Adrienne, who details her experience in full on this blog, described her first Step Change class: “Wow – a 50:50 mix of wheelchair dancers and those without. Cool! A little warm-up and then we were off. I’m not a regular wheelchair user and get fatigued quite easily, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up. It was fine. Nuno and Rashmi [the instructors] are on hand to help and answer any questions. I also needed to ask one of the other wheelchair dancers how he was managing to turn his chair using just one hand. The hour flew by. What a great afternoon. We left on a high.”
Recent graduates talk about candidly women in construction (photo: Leon Csernohlavek)
Do women get a good deal in construction?
This was the question debated by a group of young women in diverse roles in the construction industry for an article I’ve just done for Construction Manager magazine.
According the Office of National Statistics, women account for just 12.8% of the workforce. Then there is the gender pay gap – the construction and building trades’ supervisors have the highest in the sector, with men paid 45.4% more than women. Little wonder then that the number of women in construction has dropped by 17% in the last 10 years, compared to a 6.5% drop for all workers in the industry.
You can read the full piece to see why it makes economic as well as ethical sense to increase the numbers of women in the industry. Among the topics debated were the fact that more action is needed to break the stereotype that construction is a man’s industry.
The roundtable heard that issues such as a lack of female toilets or sanitary bins are common. As one participant said, if a woman working on site has to leave the project several times a day to find a public lavatory, there is a strong productivity case – as well as a human rights case – for installing facilities.
Thanks to all who took part in what was a fascinating and determined debate – and all power to these strong young women and their efforts to shake up a male-dominated sector.
Campaigner and self-advocate Gary Bourlet on politicians
The Conservatives’ manifesto pledges on social care have been both controversial and muddled, but at least the issue of support (and how we pay for it) is finally a subject for mainstream national debate. Campaigners have long argued that plans to fix the broken social care system must be high on the political agenda, but many of the people who rely on it most are rarely wooed by politicians – as the above quote from Gary Bourlet makes clear.
The links below offer accessible resources and general voting guides to support people to vote and find out more about election issues (I’ll update this roundup as – hopefully – more is added).
The manifestos (to be updated):
Liberal Democrats – easy read version available pdf
Conservatives – easy read and accessible formats manifestos here.
The Green Party – “All manifestos and alternative formats” here, including easy read, braille and audio.
There is no mention of how to get an accessible version of the UKIP manifesto.
Campaign for accessible manifestos from Mencap: “We want people with a learning disability to feel part of this election. But we need your help.”
Guides to voting:
Easy read guide to voting in the general election published by the Electoral Commission and Mencap – pdf: “People with a learning disability have as much right to vote as anyone else. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.” (See also this pdf from the Electoral Commission on disabled people’s voting rights).
Love Your Vote is “a campaign run by Dimensions to support people with learning disabilities and autism to understand and exercise their right to vote.”
Every Vote Counts from United Response is “aimed specifically at making the process easier to understand for people with learning disabilities and those that support them”.
Video guide to voting from Brandon Trust is a video guide that “explains how things work in the UK, what you need to do to register to vote, and the different ways you can vote”.
Easy read summary of social care issues that all parties should consider, from VODG: “Our General Election statement sets out the issues VODG wants all political parties to consider during the General Election 2017 campaign.”
Event at 10.30am Sat 3 June University of East Anglia: “Learning Disability nursing students at the School of Health Sciences have organised an information day for people with learning disabilities so that they can find out more about voting in the upcoming general election…The political parties will be represented at this drop-in session and will provide accessible information and discuss their policies with people with learning disabilities.” Also see the related Facebook group.
RNIB on voting and elections for the visually impaired: “All voters have a right to vote independently and in secret, and local authorities have to ensure that polling stations are accessible to people with sight loss.”
On social media:
You can also follow the hashtags #LoveYourVote #EveryVoteCounts #LDvote #EasyReadElection #LDVote2017 on Twitter.
* This post was updated on Mon 22 May with information on the University of East Anglia event, Green Party manifesto and Conservative Party manifesto, on Fri 26 May with RNIB info and Scope’s voting guide and on Fri 2 June with the United Response resource.
The issue of how Surrey’s general wealth hides specific pockets of deprivation is outlined in a new report into the social and community impact of Watts Gallery Artists’ Village (WGAV), in Compton, about a 10 minute drive from Westborough.
The Journey, water-based oil on canvas, by Dena from HMP Send.
There are, as the report states, six prisons situated within 25 miles of the gallery, including two for young offenders and two for women. More than 420 prisoners and young offenders took part in workshops over the least year and WGAV has had an artist in residence at HMP Send for over 10 years.
Close Up, oil on canvas by Samantha from HMP Send, part of Watts Gallery’s community outreach work.
The report has been commissioned by Watts Gallery Trust and written by Helen Bowcock, a philanthropist and donor to WGAV and, as such, a “critical friend”. Bowcock argues that, despite the impression of affluence, Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village “is located in an area that receives significantly less public funding per capita than other areas of the UK”. The argument is that local arts provision in Surrey depends more on the charity and community sectors and voluntary income than it does elsewhere in the country (the concept that philanthropy, volunteering and so-called “big society” – RIP – only works in wealthy areas is something I wrote about in this piece a few years ago).
As public sector funding cuts continue and community-based projects are further decimated, Watt’s words are as relevant today as they were during his Victorian lifetime: “I paint ideas, not things. My intention is less to paint works that are pleasing to the eye than to suggest great thoughts which will speak to the imagination and the heart and will arouse all that is noblest and best in man.”
Brighton, mixed media on paper, by Jenny from HMP Send.
More information on the gallery’s community engagement and outreach programme is here.
“A certain amount of support has gone, so this has made people themselves more involved with each other – we get together more.”
I spoke to older people like Val, Rene and Jane, who live in sheltered housing on the south coast, for a piece in the Guardian this morning; the comment above reflects how the kind of housing they live in has changed radically in recent decades.
Rene spoke to me about the shock felt by residents as support services are cut, their criticism of government and the need to rally round and adapt (with peer-to-peer support, for example) as help is scaled back.
Over 20 years ago, for example, the Worthing Homes sheltered complex I visited had housing staff onsite who ran activities. Now, thanks to years of government cutbacks to sheltered housing support, there are three frontline staff rotating across up to 2,000 homes in the region, depending on need, and drop-in sessions run by external experts.
General sheltered housing, like that run by Worthing Homes, offers low-level support and self-contained accommodation for low income people aged 55 or older. Benefits include greater independence and less reliance on health and social care.
But this kind of housing has suffered thanks to historic and widespread cuts to the supporting people fund (the national programme for housing related support available to councils). Now, it is at further risk. The government was forced last year to defer its unpopular decision to impose a cap on housing benefit to supported housing; the proposal was included in a recent government consultation and is due to covered in a forthcoming green paper. Campaigners including the National Housing Federation (NHF) have been challenging the funding plans, with Age UK warning of “uncertainty about the future of sheltered housing in the social rented sector”.
The approach in the Worthing region, an area known for its high proportion of older people, underlines the value of sheltered housing as the population ages, and mirrors similar moves across the country. Communal garden, Pearson’s Court sheltered housing scheme in Worthing, West Sussex.
Simon Anderson, Worthing Homes head of customer services, says the landlord and residents have tried to work together since the council funding cut: “We were asked to do much more work for less money…but ultimately this is a housing provider and its residents coming together [through agreeing new initiatives] at a time of austerity”.
A 2012 Age UK report, Making it Work for Us [pdf] suggests “listening and responding to the views of residents should be fundamental in shaping what sheltered and retirement housing offers”. Simon explains: “Some people who moved in when there was someone [staff] here all the time…Now they’ll be thinking ‘I didn’t sign up for this’…So in conjunction with them, we began discussions on what the future service would look like. Social isolation was a significant issue for many”.
With the green paper on such issues due after the election, and further funding changes looming, Simon acknowledges “the lack of clarity and certainty”, yet he is resolute: “We have no plans to withdraw our sheltered schemes as they bring significant benefits to our residents as well as savings to the public purse by maintaining our residents’ health, tenancies and independence.”
Roy Warman’s wife, Phyllis, died in January 2015. Buoyed by well-wishers in the first few weeks of bereavement, the visits and telephone calls gradually dwindled, and he felt increasingly alone. Many of his friends have passed away, he does not have any family nearby and the couple never had children. He explains: “The longer it goes without speaking to someone, the harder it gets.” He describes loneliness as “one of the hardest things that you will encounter in life”, likening feeling low to “living in a void”.
Roy Warman credits Age UK with helping to turn his life around Photograph: Amanda Searle/Guardian
Today he is part of the charity Age UK’s telephone befriending service that matches older people with like-minded volunteers for friendship or phone calls. Roy has weekly phone calls with a volunteer he describes as “like the daughter I never had” and he also has regular visits from another volunteer as part of Age UK’s face-to-face befriending scheme.
The kind of weekly phone call or visit that Roy gets are among the solutions to help ease the loneliness epidemic affecting 1.2 million older people in England; I’ve written about this for the Guardian today.
Age UK says that 1.2 million older people are chronically lonely and that this has an adverse impact on mental health, and the challenge will increase as our population ages. In the next 20 years, England’s over-85 population is set to rise from nearly 1.3 million people to just under 2.8 million.
The UK’s Flamingo Chicks also delivers inclusive dance workshops overseas, this is a session at the Multikids Academy school in Accra, Ghana (photograph: Flamingo Chicks)
“It is the one place she can be herself” is how one parent described the inclusive dance school I wrote about for the Guardian last year.
I’ve been following the progress of the Bristol-based Flamingo Chicks, which has just published its latest impact report and is now preparing for its spring show tomorrow, Saturday (you can read more about the background to the organisation in this original piece).
An inclusive dance session run by Flamingo Chicks (photograph: Flamingo Chicks)The three-year-old community interest company, which has English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo as a patron, brings disabled and non-disabled children together to do ballet.
Over 2000 children and young people aged 2 to 25 attended the classes and workshops in 2016-17 through workshops across the UK and regular classes in Bradford, York, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds and London. The campaigning slogan is “ballet not barriers” and while the majority of young participants have a range of physical disabilities, learning disabilities and autism, 22% are not disabled.
The need for more more inclusive arts groups is reflected in a recent survey by charity Scope and parenting website Mumsnet. It showed that four in 10 parents of disabled children say their child rarely or never has the opportunity to play with non-disabled children. Josie and her helper Joe at an inclusive dance session (photograph: Flamingo Chicks)
Josie Wilkins, who has a learning disability, attended mainstream dance classes with the help of her older sister, but as she got older the “gap” between her and the other pupils became wider and she had to leave. The family found Flamingo Chicks, where Josie, 10, who is also visually impaired, is a regular. She recently had major surgery but returned to class as soon as she was out of hospital, wearing, Ingrid adds “a pink tutu, and dancing in her wheelchair using just one arm!”
Recognising that preconceptions about ballet may put off boys, Flamingo Chicks launched boys only groups and introduced more male teachers and volunteers (in the last year, 38% of participants were boys). The company’s recent Dad & Me campaign also focused on the challenges fathers face when caring for a disabled child. Of 250 fathers who participated in a survey as part of the campaign, only 10% had told their boss they had a disabled child, mostly due to fear that it affect their career.
Alfie Pearson, who attends the inclusive dance sessions, with his dad and sister (photograph: Flamingo Kids)
The organisation has also delivered training and workshops overseas (I’ve blogged about this before), so its model can be emulated elsewhere. The overseas work includes collaborations with the special school in Ghana (pictured at the top of this post), a country once described as “the worst place in the world to be disabled”.
Find out more about Flamingo Chicks and its #balletnotbarriers campaign on the website, Facebook or Twitter
