CHANGE Tools for Inclusion
CHANGE ‘Tools for Inclusion’ Developed by people with learning disabilities to support marginalised people to access information that leads to greater equality.
About You
About You
About Your Organization
Organization Name
CHANGE
Organization Website
Organization Country
United Kingdom, Leeds
Country where this project is creating social impact
United Kingdom, Leeds
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
Charity of the year 1998
CHANGE was charity of the year for Comic Relief. A short film about our work was shown on BBC1 and two people with learning disabilities form CHANGE collected the award on television.
Young People’s Award for the Community 1999
Two people with learning disabilities form CHANGE, Richard West and Justine March were invited to Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Young People’s Award for the Community.
Breakthrough UK Awards 2010
CHANGE was nominated and awarded Highly Commended in 2 categories for employing people with learning disabilities on an equal living wage, as well as our work on creating accessible information.
Human Rights Award 2011
CHANGE won a Highly Commended Human Rights Award from International Service. These awards are to recognize the achievements of workers, volunteers, activists and organizations who are devoted to promoting Human Rights
Royal Society of Public Health with Christ Church University Special Commendation for Contribution to the Field of Arts and Health Inequalities 2011
This award was in recognition of CHANGE’s ground breaking work in creating accessible information around sex and relationships for people with learning disabilities.
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
Lina Gyllensten - Research and Publications Officer Lumos
LUMOS is an organisation working to end the systematic institutionalisation of children across Europe. They are working to ensure that all children live in safe, caring environments, whether they are disabled, from an ethnic minority or from an impoverished background.
020725 36464
lina.gyllensten@lumos.org.uk
Tony Bonser - Board of Trustees for National Council for Palliative Care and
campaigner for Dying Matters Coalition
CHANGE has worked with this organisation around developing accessible information about cancer treatment and palliative care. It demonstrates how our methods of working can ensure that people who would normally be marginalised within the health care system, can be supported to be more informed and empowered to make life and death decisions for themselves.
01254 854323
tbonser@aol.com
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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Established (past the previous stages and has demonstrated success)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for more than 5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
People with learning Disabilities PWLD are marginalised and have their rights undermined in every aspect of their life, by the belief that they cannot understand enough to participate in a meaningful way.Paid job opportunities are rare. Evidence shows that PWLD have fewer health choices and are often neglected,resulting in death. The right to family life is undermined by the belief that PWLD cannot form meaningful relationships. Lack of sex education means that PWLD are more likely to be in abusive relationships. ParentsWLD have little access to good support so their children are removed because they are deemed unable to give good enough care. PWLD are most vulnerable to hate crime. Throughout their lives PWLD have restricted choices even when it comes to deciding how they want to die.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
CHANGE empowers(PWLD) to campaign for equal rights and play key roles in the development of a fair and more inclusive society.
With the right kind of accessible info and support PWLD can increase their knowledge of issues that affect their lives and make important decisions for themselves, actively making a valuable contribution to society, whether it be within the family, the wider community, or at policy level.
CHANGE employs PWLD to develop training and resources for inclusion that support people who find reading hard. StaffWLD work with professionals to develop easy read, illustrated info. The most effective accessible info is produced with the direct guidance of PWLD. By providing high quality accessible resources PWLD are a key part of the solution to break down barriers that prevent people achieving their equal rights. If society is to become genuinely inclusive PWLD must be empowered to be at the forefront of making changes.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
To develop effective accessible info CHANGE allows time for peer led focus groups to be facilitated with PWLD. This Emancipatory research is the key to developing useful resources to support PWLD to find out what they need to know & get guidance that they are able to put into action.
Our Cancer Resources were made in a 2 year research project. It was led by 2 co-workers 1 with learning disabilities & 1 without. We use co-working for all of our projects, co-workers are paid equally & work equal hours. Along with illustrators the Cancer Team worked with a PWLD, Oncology staff, Macmillan Nurses & carers to find out what PWLD experienced in the health care system. In this way our info answered the questions that PWLD themselves and their carers wanted to know.
People with Cancer have to make hard decisions, should I have surgery, treatment and if not how do I die? These are choices that PWLD are oftendenied and the 1 choice they are being given is not explained with little or no thought given to their spiritual or emotional journey towards death.
The books & Living Well But Dying Matters DVD have been well received. PWLD say that it is easier to take in info & make choices. MacMillan staff, say that using these resources supports professionals to modify their language & explain choices more effectively to patients.
By using this model we are able to support staffWLD to develop high levels of expertise which makes them excellent trainers providing additional support to organisations who wish to improve the service they deliver to PWLD.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
CHANGE is a small ULO (15 staff – most part time)in the Voluntary sector. Our focus is disability rights & we compete with similar, much larger organisations such as Mencap,Scope and RADAR. Recent Government changes to funding criteria mean that smaller organisations struggle to secure funding in our own right. In the last 3 years we have had to increase self-generated income. We have done this by working direct with commissioners putting us in competition with other suppliers like Photo Symbols & Inspired Services. Although our resources seem more expensive the way we work adds to the impact our they have. As well as providing PWLD with the most effective easy read info we provide a platform for PWLD to take charge of the issues that affect them and earn a living from working for CHANGE.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
Agh moments! ParentsWLD who are more likely to have their children removed; Winterbourne where PWLD in care were abused by staff;
Fiona Pilkington’s suicide after she took her disabled daughters life having suffered years of disability hate crime. Eastern Europe’s Forgotten Children with disabilities, abandoned in institutions. We believe the most effective change will be driven by PWLD themselves, because most of the inequalities they face are due to being excluded. We adhere to the ideal of ‘Nothing about us without us. Since being founded in 1993 we have ensured that PWLD are at the forefront of our work to deliver change. Our aim is to lead by example: providing exemplar accessible information for PWLD because information is power; delivering training to change professional attitudes and empower PWLD; providing meaningful jobs with influence for PWLD.
“As a ‘Power Changer’ I can help other PWLD to beat the bad guys” Shoheb – Living Our Lives in Safety Trainer
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
To extend the reach of our work in the UK and abroad. Linking with LUMOS to work in Eastern Europe provides the opportunity to deliver our model of working with strategic support bringing real change for many PWLD with user led services founded on the social model of disability. We hope that demonstrating our ability to deliver work on this scale will allow us to secure similar roles in the UK. We plan to use funding from the EHRC to roll out our Hate Crime Initiative across Yorkshire, embedding it within established services. We want to achieve better support for ParentsWLD by working in partnership to develop specialist parenting training and advocacy. We aim to improve sales of our resources and images at home and abroad to generate enough sustainable income to employ more staffWLD.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
CHANGE has made accessible information about looking after children available so that health professionals are better able to support parents WLD to have a greater chance of providing good enough care for their children. Our work has influenced policy development around the support of parentsWLD through the ‘Good Practice Guidance – Supporting ParentsWLD. Our Co-working model of employment is being implemented by other organisations. PWLD suffering from cancer now have access to information they can understand. More PWLD are now empowered to recognise when they are being abused and how to stop it.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
Work with LUMOS to support the deinstitutionalisation of young people in Eastern Europe. We will instigate good practice in supporting PWLD based on empowerment and the social model of disability to ensure the successful transition of children and young people from institutions into the community. Closer to home we will continue to work towards the provision of more accessible health services for PWLD and provision of more good quality easy read health info. We plan to improve support that is available to parentsWLD by developing specialised parenting training. We will extend our Hate Crime work, piloting our training programme in schools across Yorkshire and working with established services to create accessible reporting centres so that PWLD are aware of hate crime and how to stop it.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Known as key players in the deinstitutionalisation of PWLD in Eastern Europe & improved reporting of UK hate crime.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Visited & delivered training in the 4 Eastern European countries, action plan for setting up Youth Councils, children’s book co
Task 2
Partnership and funding secured for development of parenting training for ParentsWLD. New edition easy read parenting books prod
Task 3
Power Changers training programme being delivered in schools, potential hate crime reporting centres identified in West Yorkshir
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Agreement to extend work in EU. Begin to impact on national policies around the provision of services for ParentsWLD and victim
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Established peer to peer activities taking place led by people trained by CHANGE in EU target areas. Translated accessible resou
Task 2
Specialist Advocacy for ParentsWLD & validated accessible Parenting course under development with commitment to roll both out Na
Task 3
Evidence of impact on National policies re Safeguarding & support to report disability hate crime incidents. Plans for national
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
We are working more in partnership with mainstream service deliverers to support them to develop resources & awareness of how to give good support to PWLD. This as a viable way of ensuring that our methods of working become more widely available & organisations we link to can demonstrate that they are meeting diversity requirements.
Partnerships allow for an exchange of expertise, an example being our work with NHS Scotland who advise CHANGE on current standards and medical practice and in return we lend our expertise in producing information in the most accessible way for ParentsWLD.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
Our resources are useful not only to PWLD but anyone who finds reading hard so we reflect this in our search for new markets. We plan to develop our links in Europe translating our easy read health & parenting publications into other languages. Through our work with LUMOS we hope to develop better links with WHO and look at the possibility of developing our resources for use elsewhere in the world. We are currently seeking UNICEF approval for our parenting books and hope to build stronger links around the way CHANGE uses images to disseminate health information for people who cannot read.
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
CHANGE is a user led organisation. ½ of our Board of Directors are disabled people, & the resources we develop are based on issues that PWLD tell us are important. We employ PWLD to facilitate peer to peer learning and emancipatory research ensureing the opinions of PWLD are reflected.
We use‘a co-working model of employment’ an innovation of CHANGE that empowers staff WLD to lead our work, this makes our resources among the most effective materials for disseminating info to anyone who finds reading hard. We are well placed to successfully guide & train others on how best to empower and support PWLD. We have well organised internal systems for finance and administration and have spent the last year working to improve our marketing and sales strategy to attain greater sustainability.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
CHANGE would benefit from support to raise our profile, particularly among commissioners and local, regional and government bodies. We would also benefit from the patronage of person/s who could support us to raise awareness of the work we do.
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 | 14 weeks agoKaren Harris updated this Competition Entry. |
| 22 weeks agoKaren Harris updated this Competition Entry. |
| 22 weeks agoKaren Harris submitted this idea. |
