Ten years ago John Woodhouse, who went to a special school for children with learning disabilities, despaired of ever getting a job. Today he is a high-flying training coordinator who runs courses for police, social workers and nurses, driving across the UK from Scotland to Wales.
His life has been transformed thanks to the work of Speaking Up - a charity that gives a voice to vulnerable people and supports them to take control of their lives. The organisation, which has grown out of experiences of disability, exemplifies what the government wants charities to do as they play an increasingly important role in society and the economy over the next decade.
Ministers believe that charities and other third-sector groups have a distinct advantage over state agencies because they have reach into communities and client groups. And it's precisely this kind of user involvement that has been a key driving force of Speaking Up, a former winner of the Guardian Charity Awards, whose frontline work reaches some 10,000 people.
Since winning the award in 2002, the charity has grown rapidly from a small Cambridgeshire organisation, with 11 employees, to one of the biggest advocacy groups in the UK. It now has 84 staff, 25% of whom have learning disabilities. At the same time, it has expanded its projects and services, creating new ways to hand greater power to learning-disabled people and those with mental ill-health and physical disabilities.
However throughout the expansion, the charity's social mission - voice, action, change - remains the same. The grassroots work continues but lessons from the projects are being taken nationwide, giving support to disabled people from Hull to Canterbury to help them become equal and valued citizens.
Advocacy continues to play a critical role in helping people have a say in decisions affecting their lives. But support has been extended to a wider number of people - and help is offered outside the county.
Self-advocacy groups also exist to support young people making the transition form school to college or work. It was joining one of these groups that marked a major turning point in the life of Woodhouse, now 26.
Once painfully shy, he hardly spoke a word. However, belonging to a self-advocacy group built up his self-esteem and increased his confidence. He became an active volunteer for Speaking Up, helping with training and arts projects before getting a full-time job as a trainer. Recently he was made coordinator of a six-strong team which gives awareness training to professionals and in his spare time he helps at a nightclub.
"I got a job with Speaking Up at a time of my life when I never thought I would get a job with anyone," Woodhouse says. "The group built up my confidence and stopped me from giving up on myself.
"As time has passed, I have passed my driving test and been promoted. I can now go into a conference room full of 20 people and give a presentation. I have gone from being supported by Speaking Up to be a supporter. I can help other people."
It was through the awareness training offered by the charity that Woodhouse met his 25-year old girlfriend Amy Fogracs, who today empowers teenagers with learning disabilities through the Young People Speaking Up project. The couple started seeing one another when Fogracs joined the training and consultancy team. She previously worked as a development worker for the charity's first user parliament, a bi-monthly forum for change run by 23 elected "MPs" and eight "cabinet ministers", all of whom have a learning disability.
The success of the pioneering project in Cambridgeshire has been built on across the UK with 12 other user parliaments springing up in other areas. Each offers a chance for people with learning disabilities to challenge decision-making professionals, chief executives, politicians and service-providers. This allows them to deliver a powerful message and bring about real change. The charity has now developed a toolkit, the Big Ballot Box, designed to help other organisations set up their own parliaments. A further 12 are planned over the next year.
Such sharing of good practice has become a key aim of the charity, according to chief executive Craig Dearden- Phillips. "We want the ideas we have to be as influential as possible, not necessarily by doing the things ourselves, but by packaging knowledge and making the methodology available," he says.
In the longer term, he hopes that other Speaking Up community projects in Cambridgeshire may adopted nationally. These range from Young People Speaking Up self-advocacy workshops in special schools to Particip8, a volunteering project encouraging young people to speak up for their rights, and Activ8, a project that aims to combine life-skills courses with a buddying scheme that unites disabled and non-disabled young people.
Dearden-Phillips admits Speaking Up has become more business-orientated over the past five years, arguing that grant funding is unsustainable in the long term. In 2002, the charity relied mainly on grants for its income, which by last year had grown to £1.3m. Next year's turnover is projected to be some £2m. Currently, around 70% comes from contracts, making the charity more of a "social business". Of this, almost half (47%) is generated through contracts for advocacy and consultancy services, entered into typically with mental health and learning disability agencies, while consultancy serices have been provided to organisations such as the Disability Rights Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Valuing People learning disability programme.
This more professional approach has made it is more, not less, user-focused. People with disabilities are now represented in formal structures across the organisation right up to board level. They continue have a say in all aspects of the charity's work. Indeed it is their voices which have led the charity to produce a wide range of publications giving information and advice for people with learning disabilities.
The booklets cover moving house, bereavement, sex and sexuality. Others will cover appropriate behaviour, hygiene, getting married and pregnancy.
The charity began producing the booklets after several people with learning disabilities described existing leaflets as patronising or complicated. Focus groups of Speaking Up members were set up to find out what they wanted covered. The booklets were then tested on the readers before being published.
Michelle Mansfield, one of the developers of the bereavement guide, says; "I had suffered the death of someone close to me and there was nothing accessible to help me. Putting this guide together helped me get over my grief and I hope that it helps other people get over theirs."
Over the last five years, growing numbers of people with disabilities have been given a voice and confidence to make change as the charity has grown. For Woodhouse, it has triggered both personal and career development.
"Without Speaking Up, I might have given up on myself and not done any of this," he says. "Instead of that, I am supporting others and thinking about living more independently with my girlfriend."
Weblink: www.speakingup.org
