After a busy period of formulating and putting many campaigns into practice, the charity has once again begun to settle down ready for the next round.

As a new member of Mencap Liverpool’s campaigns team, I am getting to know how the charity works, and how campaigning fits in to what Mencap Liverpool do as an organisation. As well as campaigning for the rights of people with a learning disability, Mencap Liverpool also has to focus on outreach work, membership schemes, drop-ins, coffee mornings and socials, fundraising, and the general day to day running of the charity.

As our work continues, problems we can attempt and do our best to tackle will always arise. Sometimes it is the team’s own idea that starts a campaign, and we also use research, experts and consultation groups to assure us our hunch is right, as well as surveys – the latest being the ‘Make It Better’ survey on Disabled People’s visits to A&E (which made headlines in a major British Medical Journal.) If, however, we want to take a more open minded approach, we instigate what is called a ‘Steering Group’ over a couple of weeks, inviting people of various ages in specific groups to find out what disabled people and their carers are saying is worrying them and affecting their lives, or maybe just what activities they’d be interested in doing along with us in the near future – a forthcoming example being Chester Zoo! The social area of work that the charity does also includes the befriending scheme, of which I’m part of as well.

More information of what Mencap Liverpool do, as well as many details on recent workshops, progress of campaigns and ventures such as The Mixed Race & Disabled Local Charter we signed up to & the ‘Stop Hate Think Mate’ initiative with Merseyside Police, are included in our free newsletter.

As for the future – as a team we are always looking to improve and develop as a charity – for our and your benefit. A little dicky bird tells me the permanent staff spent a day planning for the future whilst also mastering the art of falconry at a birds sanctuary in Cheshire, practicing team work and bonding  – I’m not an Ornithologist but I am Green with envy.

Tomorrow I myself am off to an MP’s surgery to raise a few issues with relation to our work here, and next week I and another member of the team will hopefully be looking into the issue of a distinct lack of Easy Read Books Written & produced & published by Publishers, Authors & Government Departments via The Cabinet Office with the aim of making reading accessible for all. Hopefully we’ll be looking into lobbying all these people and places and I’m confident there is a possibility we can do something positive with another member of the team who is extremely passionate about this issue.

Until next week, stay safe, and take care.

Thomas