Friday, April 26th 2019
10.00 – 11.00
Stay Up Late’s Gig Buddies project matches people with learning disabilities with a volunteer who shares the same cultural interests to help people build stronger informal support networks and make new friendships.
In this session Paul will explain how it works, and how it’s delivering some ‘serious outcomes’ for people in a way that doesn’t feel at all serious, in fact it feels like an awful lot of fun!
Paul is a founder, and the director of the charity Stay Up Late. The charity grew out of the experiences of the punk band ‘Heavy Load’ that he played bass with for 15 years. Heavy Load were also the subjects of the feature length documentary movie of the same names (which Mark Kermode rates as one of the top 5 music documentaries of the 21st century!).
Stay Up Late also pioneered Gig Buddies, the innovative volunteer befriending project which relieves social isolation through a shared love of the same cultural activities. The model is now being shared across the UK (and Australia).
Paul previously worked as the registered manager of a group home for people with learning disabilities and was the Involvement Manager’ for Southdown Housing Association. More recently he was the National Co-production Adviser for Think Local Act Personal.
Paul’s passion is ending inequality for people with learning disabilities and when he’s not working he can be found spending too much money in record shops or walking on the South Downs with his family. He has 4 kids and a dog and lives in Hove.
His catch phrase is ‘Keep It Punk!’