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SubscriptionsCategory: Disability
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‘Who’s Virginia Woolf Afraid Of?’
Stephen Unwin explores how the famed author’s views about disability were typical of a growing intellectual endorsement of the dangerous ideology of eugenics in the early 20th century
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‘Pity Porn on Santa’s Knees’
Penny Pepper reflects on what the festive season means for her, as politicians and the media continue to marginalise the creation of new cultural narratives around disability
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Deaths in Care: ‘How Can You Move On if there’s No Accountability?’
Saba Salman reports on the impact on families of years spent seeking answers after an unexpected death in care
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Being An Employer of Your Own Care
Penny Pepper has spent more than 20 years balancing the books, hiring and firing, and eyeing up spreadsheets – like many disabled people, all in the name of ‘Direct Payment’
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Who Will Care for the Carers Left Without Government Support?
Politicians should take an approach to health and care that considers the needs of the families of disabled people – but instead seem content to continue the creeping withdrawal of state support from the people who need it most, writes Saba Salman
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Bogged Down with the Eternal Fight for the Perfect Convenience
Why is it still not widely understood that disabled people have the right to decent toilet facilities just like anyone else? asks Penny Pepper
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Twenty-Seven Cardigans and Still Not Enough: A Torturous Style Journey
Penny Pepper reflects on her relationship with fashion – and how punk took her into disability activism and feminism
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How the Human Rights Act Helps Disabled People Live the Lives they Want
Saba Salman reports on concerns that the Government’s new Bill of Rights will leave vulnerable people without the support and opportunities they require to lead fulfilling lives
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How a Cost of Living Crisis Fuels a Healthcare Crisis
Mental and physical health are all at risk when energy costs go up again, reports Sian Norris
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Class War – One of Disabled People’s Many Battles
Penny Pepper explains why class continues to be so oppressive for working-class disabled people
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Lost in the Criminal Justice System: What is Happening to People with Learning Disabilities in Prison?
Guy Taylor investigates the lack of resources devoted to identifying those with learning disabilities and autism in the process of justice
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Barriers, Ignorance… And More Barriers: The Every Day Experiences of Disabled People
Society and politicians need to wake-up to the fact that disability is a normal part of the human condition that can impact us all, says Penny Pepper
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The ‘Big Power Off’ and the Importance of Fact-Checking
Katherine Denkinson explores the genesis of the protest against rising fuel costs and the media’s unwitting part in promoting untruths
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From Nostalgic Disability Direct Action On Screen – To Rishi Sunak’s Cold Shoulder in the Spring Budget
A new BBC film, ‘Then Barbara Met Alan’, looking at the beginnings of disability direct action, contrasts sharply with Rishi Sunak ignoring disabled people from his Spring Statement, says Penny Pepper
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‘Completely Inhumane’: Government’s Relaxed Approach to COVID Represents a Regression for Disabled People’s Rights
By asking people with learning disabilities and their families to live in a ‘constant state of lockdown with no support’, the Government is following an approach to the vulnerable that should be consigned to the past, says Saba Salman
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Medicalisation and Hidden Agendas: The Down Syndrome Bill Faces Multiple Criticisms
The Private Members Bill promises to ensure the specific needs of people with Down syndrome are considered – but parents, campaigners and people with learning disabilities are sceptical about what the law will achieve and the motives behind it
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The Care Carnage
As the Health and Care Bill returns to the House of Lords, Penny Pepper dissects why it will hit disabled people the hardest
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A Disabled Person’s Liaisons with Politicians: A Love-Hate Affair
Penny Pepper explores what a steady stream of inadequate disability ministers reveals about the sorts of people required to really improve disabled people’s lives
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How the Government Forces Disabled People into Poverty and Despair
The Department for Work and Pensions uses private firms to deny assistance to vulnerable people, many of whom overturn the decision on appeal, reports Chaminda Jayanetti
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How the TfL Funding Crisis Will Leave Disabled People Stranded
As Government funding for London’s transport network dries up, so do promised improvements to access – with just 33% of the Underground step-free
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The Highs and Lows of 2021: A Disabled Person’s Perspective
Penny Pepper shares some of the enduring inequalities and the memorable breakthroughs which characterised the past year for disabled people
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‘Life Unworthy of Life’: The Lessons of T4
Stephen Unwin delves deep into the intellectual traditions and cultural mindset that produced the Nazis’ ‘wild euthanasia’ of people with disabilities, and finds we have not yet put those prejudices to rest
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Reason Not the Need: The ‘Down Syndrome Bill’ is a Retrograde Step
Ramandeep Kaur and Stephen Unwin fear new legislation will divide their children based on an old discredited medical model which pathologises disablity
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Recognise Disabled People’s Rights Instead of Turning them into Charity Cases
Penny Pepper explains why well-meaning but pity-inducing fundraisers do not lead to structural change for marginalised people
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Empty Shelves and Driver Shortages are Important – But So are the Disabled People Left Without Carers
The effect on the lives of disabled people of care workers reluctant to come from abroad, and a shortfall of those joining the profession in the UK, is being unsurprisingly ignored, says Penny Pepper
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The Rejection of Disabled Creativity – Enough Is Enough
Penny Pepper explores the failure of the diversity and inclusion trope for disabled people with a variety of stories to tell
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The Sound of Silence: My Joey Doesn’t Need to Speak to be Heard
Stephen Unwin explores non-verbalism and how societal debates around disability are still too binary
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‘Everyone Is Forgetting About Us’: New Research Highlights how Government’s Social Care Reforms Sideline those with Learning Disabilities
Saba Salman reports on a forthcoming independent study, part-funded by the Department of Health and Social Care – the findings of which are in stark contrast to messages from Boris Johnson’s administration around adapting to the Coronavirus and reforming adult social care
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The Government’s New Disability Strategy is No Strategy At All
Pepper offers her own suggestions for policies that would help remove barriers for disabled people
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Travels on Another Path: Obstacles for a Disabled Explorer
Penny Pepper shares her experiences of trips away and why, despite doing everything to mitigate it, the challenges of travel continue to reinforce disabled people’s second-class status
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Liberty, Equality, Infirmity?
As members of the House of Lords discuss lifting pandemic measures put in place to enable disabled peers to discharge their duties from home, Penny Pepper explains how archaic attitudes are still plain to see in society
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‘Schools Do Not Understand Why they are Using Restraint on Vulnerable Pupils’ Finds New Report
Many schools are not looking closely at whether the children disproportionately affected are from ethnic minority communities or have disabilities, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission
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Rise in Use of Physical and Chemical Restraint on Vulnerable People during COVID Pandemic ‘A Public Health Emergency’
Katharine Quarmby reports how ‘out of sight, out of mind’ sedation and seclusion seems to be replacing what little care there was before for those with learning disabilities, older people, and individuals with mental health problems
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Ten Years On from the Winterbourne View Scandal, A Human Rights Approach to those with Complex Needs is Still Missing
Saba Salman reports on how the Government could provide specialist support in a creative, humane way which takes people out of institutions and puts the individual at the centre of their care
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Free Speech or Hate Speech: Internal Home Office Report Exposes Britain’s Hate Crime Problem
A previously unreleased document lays out the realities of discrimination in modern Britain
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A Roadmap to Easing Inequalities for the Learning Disabled
Saba Salman speaks to people with learning disabilities to explore how the Government can prevent this group from being sidelined again – as they have been during the Coronavirus pandemic
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Lack of Specialist Services is Failing Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
As the Government launches a review into the care system, Byline Times reports that children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder are being failed.
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Who the Hell are the Disabled?
The impact of COVID-19 has made it starkly clear to those who live disability that it’s the imposed barriers of social organisation that makes them disabled, explains Penny Pepper
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At Greater Risk of Dying But Not A Vaccine Priority: COVID’s Mental Health Impact on the Learning Disabled
Saba Salman reports on the absence of official recognition by the Government that people with learning disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus pandemic in a number of ways
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Last In Line: The Forgotten Learning Disabled Soldiers of World War One
Saba Salman explores how a century of prejudice still finds echoes today in the treatment of people with learning disabilities during the Coronavirus pandemic
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Home Office Admits Brexit Immigration Rules May Discriminate Against People with Disabilities
Priti Patel’s department has produced a damning report on its own immigration policy which acknowledges ‘potential indirect discrimination’
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The Coronavirus Crisis: Boris Johnson’s Excuse for Bad Government
Under the cover of seemingly generous economic policies, the Government has eroded the rights of vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Sam Bright
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Hidden Trauma: Accident and Emergency Nurse Reveals Abuse of Disabled by Family Carers
Stephen Colegrave speaks to an Accident and Emergency nurse who has witnessed the unreported abuse of vulnerable people
