Self Advocacy through Story-telling: VOICE

Project Description

We would like to grow our community through the project and help to develop a framework for self-advocacy that may be applied in other contexts. In order to do that meaningfully with people with learning disabilities, the group needs to have a clear purpose and not be too abstract. Our first idea is to hold a series of workshops with the aim being to foster a positive environment where people with learning disabilities can join together and advocate their experiences through storytelling. A hope is that hearing each other’s stories and being heard will help to create a sense of community and wellbeing in the group. With the storyteller’s consent the stories can be shared to authentically highlight some of the lived experiences of those with learning disabilities that would otherwise remain unseen.

There are some challenges in this, not least issues of capacity and confidentiality. Part of why people don’t know we are here and what we experience, is because people with learning disabilities are often protected from having their images and voices shared. There are few actors with learning disabilities on tv and often the media portrays people with learning disabilities in either an unrealistic way or using actors without disabilities.

Our hope is to be creative and brave with having our voices out there. We will think carefully about risk and about how information is stored, but we would like to hear the real voices of people with learning disabilities in Hull who have a lot to say!

Initially, we intend to facilitate a series of workshops that will be the testing ground for how stories are told, as we will be driven by the advocacy of its users rather than our own assumptions. We will work with a group of around 10 people who will come together over a period of one year, to build relationships, trust and to shape how and what they wish to be heard about. As the project will be led by the members, we cannot predetermine how the stories will be collected and recorded. Ideas we have include using voices or the written word, podcasts or other creative means to develop media artifacts that are meaningful to the group. We will not use the images / faces of the people speaking or their names.

We will collect the stories to share with relevant others. As we hope the group will talk and think about how they wish for information to be shared, it is impossible to state that definitively right now. Some ideas might be to share with: other people with learning disabilities, the local council, the public (via local radio), community learning disability teams in the city, schools, the police, housing departments etc.