The blog of UK disability charity Scope. We're all about changing society for the better, so that disabled people and their families can have the same opportunities as everyone else.
This is a first for Orchard Manor and a real opportunity to let the community see some of the residents’ inspiring art work.
Art is used at Orchard Manor as a basis for skills development, providing an excellent tool for self-expression and choice-making. The young people have been involved in a variety of projects including set design (for films created in drama sessions), planning and creating a sculpture trail and making cards and bags for fundraising.
Over the last few months, the young people have been involved in UV art sessions. The studio has been fitted with Ultra-Violet lighting, which is especially beneficial for visually impaired people.
The artists are encouraged to experiment using UV paints. This includes people walking on, wheeling over, throwing objects at and pulling string along the surface of a large sheet of canvas placed on the floor.
The young people also looked at using different methods to create a painting and used large chunks of ice, which they rubbed salt into and made holes in before pouring paint over and leaving out in the sun. The finished pictures are beautiful marble-effect paintings like the one below.
Looking for a great charity running team for your 10k race, half marathon, marathon or Ultra?
If so, look no further than Scope because whatever your charity event, running for Team Scope means awesome team spirit and an amazing cause to support. But don’t take our word for it.
Parents of disabled children have told us heartbreaking stories of being pushed to the limit by the lack of support. All around the country people have been moved by this issue and more than 22,000 people contacted their MP calling on them to take action.
MPs respond
So what happened in this important debate?
There was great news that MPs from both Labour and the Conservative Party supported Scope’s two key amendments to improve the Bill. The first change we wanted would force councils to ensure that the local services we all rely on day to day are inclusive and accessible for disabled children and children with special educational needs. Our second amendment would enable parents to properly hold local authorities to account – to give them a voice ensuring the support they need is available in their local area.
Many MPs spoke passionately about the battles that parents face in getting support. They recognised the need to ensure that disabled children and their families are at the heart of decision-making when local authorities are developing services.
A once in a generation chance
The Children and Families Bill is a vital chance for the Government to address the struggles these families are facing. In the debate Graham Stuart MP rightly said that this is “a flagship bill” with the potential to change the lives of children with Special Educational Needs – just as the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act transformed support for millions of disabled people.
Conservative MP Robert Buckland spoke of the struggles that families face to get the support they need, largely due to the “assumption… that disabled children and young people…will not want to access mainstream services”. He also emphasised that there must be a complete “transformation” of local support for disabled children to make them more inclusive.
It was also particularly encouraging to hear the Chair of the Education Select Committee, Graham Stuart MP, pushing that he wanted the “power and role of parents enhanced by this legislation, not diminished”.
And the Children’s Minister Edward Timpson responded directly to our campaign.
He made a point of saying he understood how important local services are for disabled children and their families and mentioned our campaign specifically.
He hasn’t made a firm commitment yet, but said he’s hoping to ensure that the regulations accompanying the Bill include a duty – to ensure that councils promote services which are “responsive to the needs” of the local community, such as listening to children with Special Educational Needs and their families.
This could be a huge step forward but there is still a lot more to do.
Will they deliver on their promise?
The Government has made some welcome changes in the Bill, particularly support for children with the most complex needs. But for the nine out of 10 children with Special Educational Needs who do not qualify for a statement (or Education, Health and Care Plan under the new reforms), their future still remains uncertain.
And despite a small number of committed MPs working hard to improve the Bill in Parliament, wider interest from MPs has been disappointingly low – despite the importance of this issue.
The Government promised parents a transformation in the way support is provided for families with children with Special Educational Needs. But the reforms currently in the Bill are not good enough. The Bill will now be passed to the House of Lords. Parents deserve better local support and Scope will be doing all it can to ensure Peers in the House of Lords improve the Bill so it meets the high expectations families have.
I began volunteering just over 10 years ago when I was asked by a friend to become a Homestart volunteer. This is an organisation which provides support to mothers with young children. Having been a young mother with four children, I knew how much I would’ve liked such a service. I still volunteer for Homestart and support a family now.
Making time to volunteer for others is no hardship and when I was asked if I would like to take part in Scope’s Our Generation project I saw it as a great opportunity to support my local community.
The training was a weekly session with a small group of other volunteers, held over a few weeks. I really enjoyed the training; it was fun, informal and without a lot of academic jargon.
Volunteering – “a hugely rewarding experience”
I find volunteering a hugely rewarding experience. To know that a small effort on my part can make a big difference in someone else’s life is extremely satisfying.
Currently I am matched with a lady I visit once a week who has little local support from friends or family, and whose health is not very good. She always looks forward to my visits and welcomes me warmly. Sitting, talking and getting to know each other is enjoyable for both of us. Although it’s early days, I can already see the impact this support is making and I’m excited about getting her more involved with her local community.
I would recommend volunteering to anyone who has yet to experience it. It is a wonderful way to make a difference and there is definitely a ‘feel good’ factor in doing something for someone else.
Congratulations to Jack Carroll, the very talented young comedian in the final of Britain’s Got Talent 2013. The audience loved him and so did the judges – David Walliams described him as the next Peter Kay. Jack is funny and likeable. He also happens to have cerebral palsy. He ended his set with a quip about donating to the disability charity Scope – then gave himself £20 to cut out the middle man!
I bet Jack’s jokes have also helped a few people think differently about what it means to be disabled. Like me, Jack uses humour to challenge attitudes to disability, much in the way that Britain’s Paralympians did with their amazing achievements last summer. A year on from the games, it’s got me thinking: could comedy be 2013’s Paralympics?
As a child growing up wobbly (I prefer the term to ‘cerebral palsy’), I used humour to disarm bullies and to deflect people’s pity. I thought that if I was cheeky or funny, people would respect me. I loved saying the things everybody thought but nobody dared to say.
Fifteen years later, when I discovered comedy, it was a revelation. I’d found something which let me stand in front of people and challenge their prejudices and stereotypes. So if the audience feels sorry for me when I walk out on stage because I’m wobbly, I use humour to question why. By the time I walk off, I want them to see the person behind the wobbles.
A lot of my material questions the lazy thinking behind what’s seen as different and as normal. I think disability is normal – it has always existed. It’s not abnormal because it’s part of life. Of course it brings struggles, but many of those struggles come from society’s inability to deal with difference.
Comedy lets us tackle ‘difficult’ subjects in a light-hearted way. It lets you by-pass the discomfort that bubbles up when people worry too much about what to say. I try to turn people’s fears into jokes, because I find that people are more receptive if you make them laugh. And, do you know what? Disability can be funny! Some people think I’m talking about an issue, but I just talk about my life, which is what every comic does.
It’s a difficult time for everyone right now, including disabled people. Attitudes towards disabled people and the ‘vulnerable’ have worsened. We need the power of comedy now, more than ever. If I can say things that need saying and change attitudes for the better, it gives a deeper meaning to the job I love.
It’s wonderful to see Jack Carroll doing so well and I hope he has a great future ahead of him. The more that difference is represented in the media, the more people will accept it as a natural and invigorating part of life. But Jack and I are not the only ones using laughter to change the way people think: there’s a host of great disabled comedians out there. My friends at Scope, who work to remove barriers so that disabled people can lead full and productive lives, have collected some clips .
I started working in Scope six years ago in the summer of 2007 and have never looked back. The reason I chose Scope is that I noticed my friend was working as an assistant manager in the store and I thought it would be fun to work with her.
After starting volunteering at the store I found that it had a good volunteer base who were all friendly and easy to work with.
NVQ in Retail
Through volunteering I have gained a lot of experience and an NVQ in Retail – I am now a key volunteer which will further me in my retail career.
As part of being a key volunteer for Scope I have run the shop on occasions and train new volunteers on the till and in other areas like steaming and tagging the clothes before they are put out on the shop floor.
With the 20% discount on all donated stock for volunteers as well as paid staff, you will often see me buying clothes and other items for both me, my family and friends.
Making customers happy
One of the things I love the most about being a volley for Scope is the customers and making them just that little bit happier for the day. For example, there was a young woman who spotted a pair of new rock boots in the window and after she had bought them she was so happy she skipped out of the shop.
In the future I would like to be the manager of a charity shop as I enjoy working in the charity shop environment and believe in helping others to help themselves.
I would encourage others of all ages to consider volunteering in Scope for the experience and qualifications you can gain and the friendly atmosphere you will always find in this environment.
1. Investing in better employment support will bring down benefit expenditure
Successive Governments have recognised that supporting more disabled people into work can bring down social security spending. But too many programmes have had the wrong focus. Scope has long been clear that the Work Capability Assessment doesn’t work; our figures show that only 1,000 disabled people have got a job through the Work Programme. Ed Miliband is right to make this a big issue when it comes to welfare. But he needs to be clear that the reason unemployment is high for disabled people is because there are barriers to the labour market and a lack of appropriate jobs – not because disabled people don’t want to work.
We need to assess what the barriers disabled people face actually are rather than focusing on whether someone is medically able to stand up in the shower.
And we need to make sure those barriers are met through a programme of support that works for disabled people and finds jobs that they actually want, rather than pushing them into low-pay, low-skill jobs that only work in the short term.
2. Spending money on social care can reduce broader public spending
Ed Miliband wants to cap something called Annually Managed Expenditure (AME), public spending that fluctuates with the economy. Welfare spending is the main chunk of this, and this is the basis for the ‘cap welfare’ headlines.
Social care doesn’t come from this budget. But there’s a crucial link here. If disabled people don’t have the right support to get up, dressed and out of the house in the morning, they won’t be able to play a part in their community and the wider economy.
With the right support, disabled people will be able to to contribute more to the economy, creating savings in social security expenditure and generating tax revenues.
Rather than capping Annually Managed Expenditure (AME), Labour should invest in areas like social care that could make real savings across the whole of public services – not just welfare.
This is really important, because disabled people will be concerned about the impact on their support of combining a shift to a ‘contributory welfare’ system and a cap on AME. Hopefully this means that when it comes to disabled people, Labour’s starting point won’t be “How much money do we have?”, but rather “What kind of support we need to provide?”
And hopefully the result will be plans for making this a better place for disabled people.
Big Society Capital defines social investment as “the provision and use of capital to generate social as well as financial returns”.
David Cameron thinks it’s a great idea and is throwing his weight behind it ahead of the G8 meeting of world leaders at the end of June. He recently told the Telegraph: “Britain and other developed nations face a shared challenge – sorting out our debt problems and achieving economic growth. We need to do this at the same time as improving public services and tackling our deepest social problems. That’s why this Government has placed such an emphasis on social innovation from charities, social enterprises and other businesses”
Investors are increasingly looking to make ‘social investments’. According to JP Morgan the global market for social impact investment is estimated to be worth $9 billion and expected to grow to between $200 and $650 billion in the next decade.
How is Scope involved? We were the first traditional charity to venture into the social investment bond space, blowing open the space for other charities. We launched our Bond in 2011, which offered investors a return of 2% and the opportunity to support our work making this a better place for disabled people. We raised £2m; and used it to fund new charity shops and seek new regular donors, which in turns provides us with a sustainable income for our network of parents befriending groups and info and advice service. Check out this blog from Tom Hall. The first tranche of the Bond is closed, but Richard Hawkes hopes Scope’s work will inspire others. “Charities can’t just rely on traditional donations. Investors are looking for ways to invest their money that has a social as well as financial return. We need to bring them together.”
Why does a charity do it, it sounds risky? Charities need a mix of income streams. The social investment bond creates an alternative way for people to support our work alongside the philanthropic loans and traditional donations. Donations are important; they support vital work on the ground. But charities also need to invest in activities that generate long term, sustainable income – such as fundraising or charity shops. Not every donor can fund these activities. But – as they generate income – it is perfect for a social investor, who wants to support a charity, but also wants to see a return on investment.
How is a charity able to pay a loan back with interest? We are investing the money we raise in activities that generate long-term, predictable and sustainable income, such as our fundraising programme and our retail network. That means we can be confident that we can return the investment and also fund our work to make this country a better place for disabled people. Find out more about the impact Scope’s Bond had in this Investing for Good case study.
So, what can be done to grow the market? Scope is also backing the launch of the Social Stock Exchange (SSE), a portal for social enterprises and social purpose businesses seeking to raise capital and for social impact investors wishing to find businesses that reflect their values. The Government also has a chance to send a strong message with its proposed consultation on tax relief for social
These are the best digital campaigns for social change ever. Full stop. No question.
Or are they? Who are we to say which are the best? Well, we have twice been named Third Sector Digital Campaign of the Week in the past year (though er, there must have been 52 claims to that fame!) Certainly it’s a hard task deciding which campaigns are best, in part because there’s no simple measure of what a good campaign is, especially in digital.
“Not a digital campaign at all” you cry! Maybe so, but 200 years ago it spawned some of the most popular online campaigning tactics we all know and love (or hate) today.
Would petitions be so popular and the likes of Change.org, Avaaz and 38 Degrees exist if activists hadn’t ridden on horseback round the country collecting signatures and presenting them to Parliament? (Ah, the good old days: Parliament had to stop its business for them to read out the names every time a petition appeared!)
And much more. Yah boo to many campaigns of today, digital and otherwise.
Strengths: Many.
Weaknesses: Computers and the internet hadn’t been invented yet, but they didn’t let that stop them. Modern-day slavery is sadly still around today, although they made a massive change at the time.
2. Book burning, anyone?
Have you ever tried inviting people to a ‘book burning party’? If you do (like these people), you’ll get a pretty strong reaction.
This was the inspired, creative, not-uncontroversial campaign to save a library and raise taxes (maybe we should have made them number one just for getting public support for higher taxes!). Watch the video or read what happened to get the full lowdown.
Strengths: Cheap (a few lawn signs – everything else digital). Creative. Quickly changed public opinion. Clear outcome: a vote.
Weaknesses: Is it a one-hit wonder? Will these kinds of shock tactics build a longer term movement?
3. Twitter freedom of speech is brilliant/terrible/dead
Cast your mind back to 2009. Three thousand miles away 30,000 people in Ivory Coast, one of the poorest countries in the world, claim to have been injured by Trafigura, a company dumping toxic sludge. The company’s being hit by one of the biggest lawsuits in history… But no-one even knows about it, because they go to court and get an injunction and stop the press reporting on it, PLUS a ‘super-injunction’ stopping them even talking about the fact they’re being stopped from reporting on it.
Modern madness, right? So what happened? A combination of a brave MP, journalists – and tweeters. Twitter played a big role in lifting the lid on what was happening, revealing the scandal, injunctions-be-damned, just one example of how valuable a free Twitter is.
Strengths: A free Twitter means people power can beat legal, corporate and political power. That can be an amazing and wonderful thing.
Weaknesses: The halo of Twitter free speech is looking both tarnished and threatened. Also, exactly which people have the people power on Twitter? It’s still a case of having the skills, education, time and internet access to use them, a challenge for campaigners who want to genuinely empower.
4. Your knife or your life
The Met are not known for innovative attitude- and behaviour-change campaigning, but they did this - dramatic, engaging, it’s hooked in more than a million people.
The campaign is a series of YouTube videos where you see what’s happening through the eyes of a teenager and you click on-screen to choose what happens next. Every choice you make has a consequence… It’s hard to describe what it feels like being stabbed to death on screen.
A controversial choice because: does it even work? That’s really the question – and we don’t know the answer. And how do you even measure the success of something that’s so ambitiously trying to change attitudes and behaviour change, which are notoriously hard to assess? We love the ambition, creativity and execution though.
Strengths: Like all good communications it’s story-based. It’s also visceral, heart-stopping, simple and original. It goes to where many young people are at: on YouTube.
Weaknesses: We haven’t seen any evaluation of what it actually changed – are fewer young people carrying knives as a result or is this just a cool set of videos? We’d love to know.
5. We Are Spartacus (we are not big charities)
While many disability charities (including us) were struggling to mount big public campaigns to oppose welfare reforms that were unfair to disabled people, an unexpected one took off.
Forget Kirk Douglas (or the remake), We Are Spartacus is a group of disabled people starting a grassroots online campaign, not content with what was happening and intent on getting their views to the Government in a big way. They used free blogs, Freedom of Information requests and crowdsourced responses, they pushed and pushed – and broke through into the Twittersphere, galvanizing many people and helped to influence what was happening in Parliament.
Some disability charities (including us) struggled to know quite how to engage with We Are Spartacus at first and we’re still learning – because although we often have the same goals, at times we work so differently.
But this one is controversial above all because it poses some tough questions for us and every other big charity out there: if they can do this with next to no resources, why aren’t we achieving a whole lot more with our digital campaigning?
Awkwardness and challenges can be good though. Right?!
Strengths: Without money or a traditional organisation, they’ve helped to reshape disabled people’s online campaigning.
Weaknesses: Disabled adults in the UK are three times more likely NOT to have access to the internet as other people, so there’s still a big challenge to engage disabled people in digital campaigning.
Who didn’t make the cut?
Any top five is of course going to miss out some big-hitters. Controversially, here are some that didn’t make it in:
Kony 2012 We also couldn’t bear to include Kony because it so often gets missed that the Kony campaign started in the real world through lots of hard work building support on student campuses, before it went digital. Amongst other criticisms we have, it was the wrong campaign goal (do we really need more military action) and what about the views of the people whose own lives were affected??
Avaaz, 38 Degrees, Change.org… We’re interested in what the big online campaigning sites are doing and hope to work with them more. But the tough part we have to do is start campaigns from scratch, which are often about lots of hard graft and creativity rather than a quick win. So, sorry guys: not for this list.
Thunderclap It’s an interesting idea and we’ve certainly tried it out. We haven’t heard of it actually changing much though, and we’re concerned that campaigning organisations (including us) could use it as a substitute for creating real social media conversations that genuinely get loads of people talking and tweeting. Have you heard different? Check it out here if Thunderclapping’s new to you.
The Arab Spring and many other campaigns elsewhere in the world So much has been written about the role of social media in the Arab Spring but we feel we just don’t know enough to include it here. Also: there are probably many other exciting digital campaigns in parts of the world we’re not well enough connected to to know about.
And more… Hope you enjoyed our (hopefully) thought-provoking list. What would you add?! And if you’re interested enough to read this far, would you like to apply for our exciting digital campaigning role or could you share it with your networks? Thanks!
The Government’s response – the Care Bill - is being scrutinised in the Lords. It seeks to tackle the crisis in care by introducing a cap on costs, a new means-testing threshold and national eligibility to end the postcode lottery in care.
The benefits of taking action are almost self-evident – imagine not being able to get up, get dressed and get out of the house.
But getting a system that works costs cold, hard cash and in an age of austerity that’s in short supply.
In recent years hard-up councils have tightened their criteria, meaning that disabled people might need more frequent hospitalisation, be unable to continue living in their own home, more likely to experience depression and fall into debt or lead a less healthy lifestyle.
Does that mean we will be stuck with a persistently underfunded system with an ever-tightening rationing of resources? Not necessarily.
Cash on the table
As reported in the Financial Times, five leading disability charities have revealed that the economic benefits from government investment in social care for disabled people are substantial. We can break the downward spiral.
Earlier this year, the five charities lifted the lid on the scale of the crisis revealing that care for disabled people was underfunded by £1.2 billion. The case for plugging that gap just became even stronger.
Money talks
The debate on how we fund social care has – ahead of the government spending review on June 26 – is a hot topic.
With pressure on A&E’s hitting the headlines, Clare Gerada, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs said: ”And the elephant in the room, we don’t have enough social care beds and social care facilities so patients can be looked after in more appropriate places.”
The case for a properly funded social care is gathering momentum.
A Care Bill that does not go hand in hand with extra funding is at risk of failing the millions of people who rely on care in their day-to-day lives. The economic case for action is now as compelling as the human one.
