The Latest Bulletin

User-led groups met this week to discuss how to turn back the tide of closures of organisations run and controlled by disabled people and service-users. Research shows the number of user-led groups continuing to fall, due to austerity cuts and other trends affecting their funding. The closures mean user-led organisations have a “diminishing” voice in opposing oppressive policies, according to a briefing released ahead of the meeting. The closures are leading to a loss of a collective voice for disabled people, and the knowledge, peer support and advocacy that user-led organisations provide, the briefing said. Click here to read more

We have been working with the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) to assess whether local government is working well for women. Our year-long Commission is jointly chaired by Labour’s Dame Margaret Hodge MP and Conservative councillor Cllr Gillian Keegan, Director of Women2Win. Funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Commission will adopt a strategic approach and focus on the newly created structures at a local level and how they are including or excluding women. Local government spends £94bn each year: it plays a vital role in providing services on which we all depend and tackling the challenges we all confront, and it is changing fast. Budgets have been cut significantly since 2010, the powers councils exercise are changing, and devolution will see an increasing shift of power and…

Parish Hirasaki was not planning on being a scientist. At least, not when she first got to Duke University. “I was sent off to college to find a husband,” Hirasaki says. “And to get a teaching degree so if god forbid anything ever happened to that husband I could work when my children were in school. So that is the era I came from. “ The year was 1963. And as Hirasaki tells it, that’s what most women did… if they had the opportunity to go to college at all. But once she reached college, Hirasaki quickly realized teaching wasn’t in the cards. She struggled with the liberal arts courses. But she had always been good at math. So she…

Please click on the relevant link below Facebook page Facebook Social Work Focus group LinkedIn Twitter YouTube channel Neil’s website The humansolutions website Information about Neil’s online learning community, the Avenue Professional Development Programme

Stress is increasingly being recognized as a serious problem in the modern workplace. In this practice manual, Neil Thompson uses his decades of experience of helping people tackle stress to provide a clear and helpful guide to the key issues and lays the foundations for a positive and constructive response to the challenges involved. This is an essential guide for anyone wanting to keep pressures within manageable limits. Available for purchase along with many other books by Neil here or from the Avenue Learning Centre here.

It is not uncommon for us to find ourselves in situations where we are wondering: ‘Why is so and so being so awkward?’. In such circumstances we tend to focus on their behaviour or attitude, but this can be misleading. That is because the chances are that, while we are thinking they are being awkward, they are probably thinking we are being awkward. So, what can often happen is that a situation that is rooted in a conflict between two parties is not recognized as such by either of them, each putting the difficulties down to the other’s ‘awkward’ behaviour. While some people are often uncooperative for their own reasons, in the majority of cases believing that someone is being…

Frank and Mary loved each other’s company. They would sit together and hold hands. Both had dementia and were living in a care home. Their closeness made them happy and their families were delighted. Mary wasn’t bothered when Frank called her by his wife’s name, nor that he began to intervene in her day-to-day life. They were besotted. He started sitting her on his knee, and, after a few drinks, they could be found canoodling in the corner. This is not a fictional scenario. It is a story told by a care home worker that touches on a taboo about dementia and sex. It is now well established that while sexuality and sexual intimacy may change with age – and…

More disabled people than ever before are choosing self-employment, but are being let down by poor support from government, according to new research from IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed) and the Community trade union. The study, Making self-employment work for disabled people, claims that 611,000 UK disabled people now work for themselves in their main job. The report also found that although they overwhelmingly see self-employment as a positive way of working, they do not get the support they need from government. Click here to read more

Derwenthorpe is being developed by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) as an urban extension of more than 500 homes on the outskirts of York, England. This research finds that mainstream housing developers can successfully deliver sustainable homes and communities at scale that produce high-quality living environments. However, different levels of buy-in from residents mean that environmental and social measures need to be built into the model as far as possible from the outset. It recommends that: Greater emphasis on the design, space standards and aesthetics of new developments should be incorporated into Government-level directives. Housing providers must work with resident groups to set up inclusive governance structures to promote the long-term social sustainability of communities. Architects and developers need to ‘build in’…

Please click on the relevant link below Facebook page Facebook Social Work Focus group LinkedIn Twitter YouTube channel Neil’s website The humansolutions website Information about Neil’s online learning community, the Avenue Professional Development Programme