Submission of evidence on the use of health assessments for disability benefits – Professor Angie Hart, Debbie Hatfield, Lisa Buttery, Lindsay Jones, Andy Barling, Jo Tanner – Centre of Resilience for Social Justice at the University of Brighton, Boingboing, Grace Advocacy and University of West London.
May 2022: We submitted our response to the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into health assessments for benefits. We draw on our collective organisational and personal experiences, relating them to current policy and practice. We are a community of academics, students, practitioners, parents/carers and young people working together to beat and change the odds, as and with disadvantaged communities. Many of us have our own complex life challenges including physical and learning disabilities. Some of us have experienced adverse effects of current government policy and practice.
We make recommendations for how the health assessment processes to claim disability benefits should be improved.
You can download and read our response. You might think about sending our response to your local MP, who can then draw on it for their own lobbying purposes.
Resilience Revolution’s Final Research Report 2016-2022
This report presents the research and evaluation of the Resilience Revolution programme (2016-2022).
The Resilience Revolution is an innovative whole town approach to building resilience, made possible by funding from The National Lottery Fund’s HeadStart programme. Funding was available between 2016 and 2022, across 6 areas nationally in the UK with the purpose of testing and learning new ways to support young people’s mental health (ages 10-16).
In Blackpool, the programme took the bold step of developing a vision for the whole town; giving everyone who lived, worked or volunteered in the town the opportunity to get involved. The Resilience Revolution embraced co-production as a way to design and test innovative projects. Coproduction meant a range of people, with different expertise, working together, as equals towards shared goals.
Watch our workshops: how to do community co-research on health equity
Created as part of the ongoing Community Solutions for Health Equity project that Boingboing Foundation are proudly part of, we are pleased to share recordings of a series of workshops held recently in Blackpool. These workshops are free resources to be taken advantage of by any community members or organisations looking for a beginner’s guide to developing the research skills and knowledge needed to explore health inequalities in coastal areas.
A guide to becoming more eco-friendly in Blackpool and the Fylde Coast
Hi, I’m Maya, and I wanted to say a big thank you to you for reading. These guides were created to help people in Blackpool and the Fylde Coast become more environmentally friendly, without feeling too overwhelmed by climate issues. They were produced as part of the Boingboing Activist in Residence project, which gave me the opportunity to work as an Eco-activist in Residence at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. I decided that I wanted to use this role to make two guides: one for local residents, and another for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals’ Green Champions.
The Boingboing Resilience Framework
The Resilience Framework is a handy table that summarises ‘what works’ when supporting children and young people’s resilience according to the Resilience Research base. The Resilience Framework forms a cornerstone of our research and practice. On this page we have pulled together lots of useful links so you can find out all about the Resilience Framework.
Loops – a review
On 22nd February Grace and Lauren, members of the Activist Alliance, attended the show Loops at the Blackpool Grand Theatre. It was a play made in collaboration with Liverpool Everyman + Playhouse, 20 Stories High theatre company and, “a brilliant group of activists and artists who all shared important stories of what their experiences were, with courage, honesty and jokes”.
Prevention in Health and Social Care Inquiry Submissions
Co-leaders of the Resilience Revolution made not one, but two submissions to the UK Parliament ‘Prevention in Health and Social Care’ inquiry last month. The inquiry is about preventing ill health, now and in the future.
Could you be our next Activist in Residence?
Seeking two Environmental Activists in Residence for the Lancashire Youth Climate Conference. Anyone can be an activist! Apply by 29th March.
24th November – Transformative Conversations Workshop with Blackpool Activist Alliance
Join the Activist Alliance and the Ella Baker School of Organising as we reflect on how we can successfully engage with ‘difficult’ conversations with people who do not share either our values or our moral frames in this Transformative Conversations Workshop.
More Than Words: Supporting effective communication with autistic people in health care settings
Over several months our autistic CSRJ and Boingboing colleague, Dr Gemma Williams, worked with a stakeholder group to co-produce some guidelines for communicating well with autistic people in healthcare settings.
Activism is for everyone – and it’s essential for building resilience
I stood there on a warm August day with a sense of hope. People of all ages had come together for Make A Change, the inaugural launch event of the Activist Alliance in Blackpool. And it seemed to have come at just the right time. Things seem to be going from bad to...
Community Report – Climate Change and Mental Health
A full summary of findings from the research project ‘Climate change and mental health; A co-produced study with young people in Blackpool’.
Submission of evidence: Children and Families Act 2014
Read our submission to the House of Lords’ inquiry into the Children and Families Act 2014.
