interviews
We can’t duck this reform of benefits for disabled people | Paul Goodman
Changing the disability living allowance is not popular – but it is right. Ministers must hold their nerve Were I still an MP, I would dread the coming impact of the government’s disability living allowance reforms in my constituency.
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We can’t duck this reform of benefits for disabled people | Paul Goodman
Why a critic of institutional care is taking over from Southern Cross
Why has former learning disability ‘tsar’ Ann Williams accepted a key position on the board of a new company taking over 249 former Southern Cross homes? Janet Snell finds out Earlier this month, residents at a Darlington care home held a “good riddance to Southern Cross” party when they heard that the ownership of their home was passing from the collapsed care giant to a new company
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Why a critic of institutional care is taking over from Southern Cross
Thank you Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, for improving the lives of disabled people
As the mother of two disabled daughters I thank Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant for the way they have highlighted discrimination and ignorance It’s been a decade since The Office appeared on our TV screens. The story of daily grind in a Slough paper merchants was so realistic that when I stumbled across it on BBC2 one night it took me a minute to realise that it wasn’t a documentary.
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Thank you Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, for improving the lives of disabled people
Scale of cuts has ‘no bearing’ on services for disabled people
Knowsley has come out top in a study that reveals some local authorities are managing budget reductions much better than others. Mary O’Hara reports Knowsley council in Merseyside is a shining example of how, with a few “creative steps”, some local authorities are defying assumptions that budget cuts inevitably lead to worse services for disabled people. Its recently opened Centre for Independent Living was developed as part of the council’s health and wellbeing initiative and establishes direct partnerships between the NHS and social care services
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Scale of cuts has ‘no bearing’ on services for disabled people
The campaigner bringing people with autism to the policy table
Ari Ne’eman rubs some people up the wrong way. Why? Because he is an outspoken autism campaigner who has risen to prominence in the US by demanding that policymakers and wider society stop trying to “fix” autistic people or “make us normal”, and concentrate instead on including people with the condition in the decisions that affect their lives.
Ne’eman, who is in the UK to give a series of talks, claims that for too long even the most well-meaning advocates in the US and in Britain – including parents – have been obsessed with moulding autistic people to fit with society’s expectations of “normal” behaviour.
Simultaneously lauded and vilified since founding the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (Asan) as a teenager just out of high school in New Jersey, Ne’eman, now 23, is a polarising figure. He stirred up controversy by suggesting that more research investment be directed towards improving support for autistic people, rather than towards finding a cure to eliminate the condition.
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The campaigner bringing people with autism to the policy table
I won’t stop people in care homes getting out and about, minister pledges
Uncertainty continues over whether the government is to go ahead with its controversial decision to cut mobility payments to disabled people living in care homes.
The minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, has stressed that the government intends to “make sure that disabled people continue to receive the support that they need”, but beyond that she did not make it entirely clear how this would happen.
The proposal has triggered considerable outrage since the government announced in October that it wanted to remove the mobility component of the disability living allowance for around 80,000 disabled people living in care homes from 2012.
The mobility funding helps disabled people meet some of the extra costs they face when they travel. Charities and relatives have warned that the government’s decision to remove it risked imprisoning residents within care homes, effectively institutionalising them.
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I won’t stop people in care homes getting out and about, minister pledges
