Gary Bourlet

• I have been involved in self- advocacy for 33 years.

• I started in 1982. • I became a self-advocate because I didn’t

like what was happening at my day centre. • Everyone was too afraid to speak out. • It really took off in 1984 after my trip to

America.

The only way that we can change how society sees us is by speaking up for ourselves.

People with learning disabilities always have had

professionals and organisations speaking on their behalf and this has not worked to change peoples lives for the better.

There is no strong voice of people with learning disabilities in

the media or politics.

Some self advocacy groups are not run by disabled people. People are afraid to campaign in case they lose their funding

I took the idea to the Housing & Support Alliance conference in 2013.

Housing & Support Alliance is a learning disability charity.

I did a speech and people agreed to support us. I started working for People First England in January

2014.

To bring together and empower local self-advocacy groups.

To keep local self-advocacy groups running and to support them.

Lots of self-advocacy groups have had to fold. To run media training for self-advocates.

We went to two party conferences. We got into the national media: BBC News, Channel 4,

The Guardian. We gave responses on lots of things – for example, the

Bubb report and the Mazars report. We worked with Inclusion North to produce an easy read

guide for voting. We have met some self-advocacy groups.

• The Mazars Report was an investigation into the NHS Southern Health Trust.

• The report came out because the families of people with learning disabilities and autism who died campaigned for a report.

• The report found only 1 per cent of deaths in learning disability services were investigated.

• The job of Southern Health was to keep people alive and well and they failed to do that. They then failed to properly investigate their deaths.

• Somehow you go past being angry to being more sad. • I think the person who was running Southern Health should

be sacked. • I feel sad for Connor Sparrowhawk’s family and the families of

other people who’ve died. • To this day, there are still people with learning disabilities and

autism living hundreds of miles away from their families. • This is wrong, people should be properly supported in the

community. • This is something that Learning Disability England could

campaign on.

Funding!

It has been slow. We only have two part-time staff members.

We wanted to do a lot of things but we need

more people and more allies.

We are working with Housing & Support Alliance to create Learning Disability England.

Learning Disability England

Families and friends.

Organisations

People with learning

disabilities Work on what we all agree

on.

We are inspired by Every Australian Counts. It is a campaign that made big changes for

disabled people in Australia.

Bring together people with learning disabilities, their families and friends and organisations.

Campaign on things and make life better for people with learning disabilities.

Try and change policies. Make sure that only people with learning

disabilities speak to the media on the issues that affect them.

Do you have any questions? I have a question for you… Do you think Learning Disability England is a good idea?