The history of self-advocacy in England has not been recorded, other than the stories of individuals and of some individual groups. We, therefore, decided to interview some leaders of the self-advocacy movement and some people who were allies and supporters. Three researchers, two self-advocates and one academic, interviewed 11 self-advocate…

This paper explores how Norah Fry's concerns of 100 years ago have been relevant to the work of the Norah Fry Research Centre. In 1898, Norah Fry began to investigate the social conditions and educational needs of people with learning disabilities living in Bristol and Somerset. In reporting her findings to a Royal Commission in 1905, she set out…

Paul Richards is one of those individuals who make a difference and is as far from institutional as one can be. The author met up with him at the Learning Disability Today conference in London to talk more about his work and life. Paul coordinates the service user involvement across Southdown Housing Association, based in Sussex.

This is about research an Oxfordshire Self-Advocacy Organisation did into annual health checks for people with learning disabilities. The self-advocates worked with Oxfordshire's Primary Care Health Facilitator and a Professor to find out why only one in four people in our area had a health check in 2009/10 (Emerson & Glover 2010a,b). The…

This article recounts the life-story of one man who was "diagnosed" as intellectually disabled in the early 1960s. It details the time he spent in a special residential school in the Irish Republic after acquiring this label and outlines the bullying and abuse he experienced. It includes his struggle as an adult to come to terms with his…

Mutual Support, a model of peer support by and for people with learning difficulties, was constructed through a participatory research process. The research focussed on individual narratives from people with learning difficulties. These narratives were then brought together to form a collective model of support. This paper outlines the detailed…

Building a meaningful and valued life for individuals with learning disabilities requires the sustained, diligent and coordinated efforts of family members, supporters, educators and the individuals themselves. In this article, the formative childhood and adolescent experiences of two young adults with learning disabilities, leading to their…

Many residential group settings for people with learning difficulties do not provide individuals with the private space in which they can explore their sexual relationships in a safe and dignified manner. Lack of agreed private spaces seriously infringes the individual's human rights. Many people with learning difficulties who lack privacy have no…

In this paper the small body of research which looks at how people labelled as having learning disabilities view this social identity is considered. The author argues that this research has implications for our assumptions about self-advocacy groups for people with learning disabilities.

This paper looks at the history of self advocacy in England. Self advocacy has helped many people with learning difficulties to speak up and gain more confidence. But now it is associated with Government policy. After Valuing People, people expect self advocacy organizations to speak up for everyone with learning difficulties. This might mean…

In this paper I describe how self-advocacy has grown in the Czech Republic. First, I talk about how services for people with learning disabilities have begun to change in the last few years. This is because voluntary groups have lobbied and campaigned for change. I learned about self-advocacy during a visit to the UK in the 1990s. I went back to…

Many people with learning difficulties want to tell the stories of their life and have done so in collaboration with academic researchers. Life histories of people with learning difficulties are a good way to learn about self-advocacy. Life histories can tell us about how self-advocacy began and the support people need to be self-advocates. Tom…

This article is about life story work with people with learning disabilities. It talks about reading and writing stories, and listening to them. Telling your life story, writing it down and talking about it with others can be an important part of self-advocacy for people with learning disabilities. Life stories are helpful when they are told or…

This article tells us about the history of self-advocacy in Denmark. It also gives some information about how services for people with learning difficulties in Denmark have changed over the past 100 years. In this article, I talk about "movements" of self-advocacy, which means the different types of self-advocacy groups that have grown…

In Japan, there is a growing network of self-advocacy groups. Some groups are involved in campaigning. Other groups are involved in social events and education. The age of de-institutionalization is gradually arriving and community living for people with learning difficulties is becoming an urgent political issue. Self-advocacy groups can help…