Knowing our history is important for all of us – and that is the same for people with learning disabilities and/or autism.
We received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to run a 2-year project called Sharing Our Voices – using personal and public stories to explore the history of learning disability. Now we are at the end of the two years, it is time to share what we have achieved.
We talked about what we had done at a successful launch event on 23rd June 2021. If you missed the event, you can watch it below.
We’d like to draw your attention to speeches from Nathaniel Lawford and Ben Doehren. Nathaniel’s speech starts at 36 minutes into the recording and Ben’s at 43 minutes 30 seconds.
One of the project’s achievements was a new website that includes personal stories from people with learning disabilities and/or autism that you can listen to or read.
We included a timeline that not only details the life and work of our founder, Grace Eyre Woodhead, but it also includes all the changes in how people with learning disabilities and/or autism are perceived and how they have been cared for during the last 100 years.
Susan sharing some photos and memories of her life.
Please take some time to explore the new website: https://sharingourvoices.org.
Also look out for a film dramatising the work of the project that will come out later this year.
History plays an important part of being a teacher. Showing us the mistakes that have been made in the past that should not be repeated.
We must learn from our past in a conscious way so that we grow as individuals and as a society. This is important to apply when developing services for people with learning disabilities and/or autism now and in the future.
