Oor Mad History

A community history project in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Scotland run by volunteers who are or have been involved in collective advocacy in the Lothians...  They celebrate the achievements of the mental health service user movement in the Lothians and preserve their history. How do we do it? > recording oral history interviews with activists and allies – the interviewers are volunteers who use or who have used mental health services and > creating and organising an archive of written material such as reports and posters, and other objects... to find out more see their website:
http://oormadhistory.blogspot.com/p/what-is-oor-mad-history.html

Out of Sight:

The Experience of Disability 1900-1950

by Humphries, S., & Gordon, P. (1992). Plymouth: Northcote House

Contents: Many first hand accounts of the experience of disabled people. A compelling book, extensively illustrated with rare photographs.  The authors tell the story of disabled people in Britain in the days before the Welfare state. Based on many interviews with blind, deaf and physically disabled people. Linked to Channel 4 TV Series

Activity drawing on the book Education of disabled people in first part of C20th
[Click here for PDF or “Schooling for Disabled Pupils 1900-1950]

Click here to go to Youtube.com > The Story of the effects of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913

PCS DISABILITY HISTORY MONTH TOOLKIT

Celebrating our struggle for equality

UK Disability History Month (DHM) runs from 22 November – 22 December each year.

UK DHM provides an opportunity to raise awareness of current threats to disabled people, including disability hate crime and the impact of the welfare reform and public sector cuts. The purpose of the month is to raise the profile of disabled people’s rights and to advocate disability equality through celebrating the historical and contemporary struggles and achievements of disabled people globally.

The theme for this year’s PCS DHM activities is 'Celebrating our struggle for equality'. We have a range of resources that branches and individual members can use to celebrate UK DHM.

Resources include:

• Poster

• Poem

• Quiz questions

• Book recommendations with discussion questions:

• 'A Very English Agent' by Julian Rathbone (ISBN-10 0349115087)
• 'Fallen' by Karin Slaughter (ISBN-10: 1846058937)
• 'Accidents of Nature' by Harriet McBryde Johnson (ISBN-10:1842707418)
• 'Bamboo Grove' by Romy Wood (ISBN-10 0956012515)

Click on the link to download the free toolkit

http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/equality/guidance-and-resources/disability-history-month-toolkit.cfm



Portrait of a Movement - Struggle for Inclusive Education

This painting by Rosa Branson represents the story of the inclusion movement in the UK. 

[Click this link for more details of the event]

Reclaiming the Past

The website arose from our project which aimed to explore the role of local mencap societies in the development of community care for people with learning difficulties in East Anglia between 1946 and 1980. The aim was to carry out the work in partnership with many different people. These included Sheena Rolph from the Open University (project co-ordinator) and local societies, including past and present members, and people with learning difficulties.The site contains information about the project and its contributorswhat we discovered how we undertook our research.

SEE : http://www7.open.ac.uk/shsw/reclaimingthepast/index2.htm

SCOPE - Speaking For Ourselves

Scope is a leading national disability organisation whose mission is to drive the change to make our society the first where disabled people achieve equality. This means defeating disablism, which is discrimination against disabled people.

This is an important resource looking at the oral history of people with cerebral palsy over the last 60 years, Pack, Timeline and film:

Scope Speaking for Ourselves - [view as PDF]

Scope Speaking for Ourselves Guide  - [view as PDF]

Scope Speaking for Ourselves Timeline - [view as PDF]

Scope – online link http://www.speakingforourselves.org.uk/index.php/resources/video

Sorry I Don't Have The Time

by Micheline Mason

Sorry I Don't Have The Time

is a poetry collection

for a modern and socially aware reader.

Micheline covers everything from the last General Election in Britain in Inviting The Thieves Back In to more efficient ways of fruit peeling in The Other End of the Banana. She is not scared to make you angry, though she is happy to make you laugh.

An excellent read.

The Disability Archive UK

The aim of the Disability Archive UK is to provide disabled people, students and scholars with an interest in this and related fields, access to the writings of those disability activists, writers and allies whose work may no longer be easily accessible in the public domain. It is hoped that the documents available via the Archive will help to inform current and future debates on disability and related issues. The Archive will be periodically expanded to include other material as and when it becomes available.

website : http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/

The Social History of Learning Disability at The Open University

This group was founded in 1994 and researches the history of learning disability as well as documenting the life stories of those with learning disabilities.  A two-day annual conference is hosted by the Open University every Summer and they regularly publish books, journal articles and have pioneered a variety of inclusive research methods.

http://www.open.ac.uk/hsc/ldsite/

Tom Shakespeare's Blog:

"Disability is part of the human condition. At any one time, perhaps 15% of the population have a disability: add illness and ageing and impairment comes to us all. In this blog, I want to share short biographies of famous and not-so-famous disabled people, and by doing so demonstrate the variety and the achievement of disabled lives. I hope it will be interesting and instructive, and welcome suggestions for future subjects."

[To see more of the blog click this link]