Stronger, Louder, Together!
Last week Nicholas, Ramandeep, Jahan and Habib from the Race Equality Foundation, and Sam from Learning Disability England led a session at NHS ConfedExpo 2025, a leading health and care conference ran by the NHS.
Their session was all about tackling the health inequalities of minoritised ethnic people with a learning disability.
In this blog, Gary Bourlet—long time advocate of Learning Disability Pride—shares why it matters and what he hopes to see in the future.
You might be wondering—what makes Learning Disability Pride different from other pride events?
The answer is simple: it’s about being proud of your learning disability.
There are many kinds of Pride events, and they all have their place.
Learning Disability Pride is unique because it celebrates the experiences, strengths, and identity of people with learning disabilities.
What this is about?
Neurodiverse Collective has started a campaign about Positive Behaviour Support (PBS).
You can read more about the campaign here.
Positive Behaviour Support is a way of working that aims to understand people’s behaviour especially if someone’s behaviour is challenging to other people.
By Kate Brackley, Learning Disability Advisor and Lindsey Allen, Programme Lead at Bild.
Kate and Lindsey share the importance of good health care for people with learning disabilities, and Bild for the Future’s work on the new chapter of the Good Lives Framework ‘Health for a good life’.
Health is really important to people with learning disabilities, we want to have a good quality of life and to feel better in ourselves as it gives us confidence to be able to be fitter for life. It is all about making good choices and decisions about our health and wellbeing.
We also want good quality health care that understands who we are as people. This is a basic human right and and we would like to have a good life with good health.
Simon Cramp, Self-advocate, Campaigner and Lifetime Member of Learning Disability England, reviews new ITV Series The Assembly.
The Assembly is a new entertainment series where celebrities are questioned by a group of inquisitive interviewers who are autistic, neurodivergent and/or learning disabled.
Simon has been avidly following the new series and giving his thoughts on each episode along the way.
At the beginning of May, the government announced how the Social Care Commission will work – they shared the Terms of Reference.
These say what the commission will work on and the deadlines for doing its work.
You can read them here
Before the Commission officially started Baroness Casey met with some people who draw on support.
Mary, one of the Learning Disability England elected member reps was at that meeting and shared this update.
Before the meeting, Baroness Casey had asked us to be ready to share what we want her to focus on in the work of the commission – that took up most of the meeting as we all had a lot to say about that.
I didn’t know everyone in the room but I think there were about 6 people who draw on support there. It was good to see Anna from Social Care Futures and Clenton from TLAP were part of this.
I said that Baroness Casey should make sure the commission includes everyone in its work and not forget people with profound and multiple learning disability who get left out too often.
This is a chance to make a difference to how social care works – I am excited at the possibilities.
Learning Disability England will keep working with the commission team and members, to help them be part of the inquiry and make sure what matters to people with learning disabilities, their families and paid supporters is included.
This includes sharing what is working now.
The Good Lives framework brings together what matters and what works – find out more here.
Tim Keilty, one of the elected member representatives talks about his experience of monitoring working in a support provider organisation.
Is what really matters what is checked and counted?
Also Tim asks do think about these ideas in a response to the Supported Housing consultation
Read more “The reassuringly expensive burden of regulation.”
The Down Syndrome Act became law in 2022 – you can more about the act and watch some films made by the Down Syndrome Association here.
Since 2021, Learning Disability England has been working with members on the Down Syndrome Act.
Sue Sharples, member of the Lancashire Friends and Relationships Group, talks about how the group has been working to raise awareness of the importance of love and affection in the lives of people with a learning disability and using Good Lives to guide their work…
In Lancashire we have a group that thinks about how relationships opportunities can be improved for people with a learning disability.
It is called the Friends and Relationships Group and is a sub-group of the Learning Disability Partnership Board.
The members include self-advocates and paid and voluntary staff from health, adult social care and provider organisations.
Alongside our agreed long-term plan for change we have used the Good Lives Framework, especially Chapter 4: To love and be loved to guide our thoughts and actions.
This has been very helpful, and we are pleased to see the refreshed version, with an added focus on human rights. Our plan is here.
We try to make sure that all of our relevant partner organisations are working towards the same aim of people being better informed about sexual rights and responsibilities, including providing scope for the development of safe and enriching relationships.
We believe that it is important to make things happen, not just talk about them.
Blog from Gary Bourlet, Membership and Engagement Lead at Learning Disability England
On the 13th March, I went to the Challenging Behaviour Foundation’s launch of the ‘What Matters to Me’ project at the House of Commons.
It was great to be part of this event, hear about the project findings and meet lots of people I did and didn’t know already.
This project is so important – the voice of people who don’t use speaking to communicate is not being heard and they are not involved in policy decisions that affect their lives.