I N C ON V E R S A T I O N

In Conversation with thePartnership Steering Group atthe University of Manchester

Andrew Holman, Inspired Services Publishing, Cotswolds, Centre Drive, Newmarket, CB8 8AN,

UK (E-mail: andrew@inspiredservices.org.uk)

Meeting with Lou Townson, Richard Hughes, Louise

Frost, Christopher Blunt, Barbara Perry, Paulette Martin,

Iain Carson and Rohhss Chapman.

● Manchester University runs a course for people want-

ing to find out more about learning disabilities.

● They have always had a group of people with learning

disabilities helping them, including giving lectures.

● Some people used to think this was wrong, they do

not now.

● The group also writes and has been in charge of the

articles in this issue.

Working with people with learning disabilities has had

a chequered history. In academia, this conversation

reminded me of the time on my first professional training

course, when I organised a student revolt against being

taken to a lecture in an old long-stay hospital. Here, we

had been told, the consultant paraded a number of people

with learning disabilities in front of students whilst point-

ing out various aspects of their disability. Fortunately, he

did not get the chance to prove the rumour that some

were naked in this public ordeal; both the visit and the

visiting lecturer were removed from the course curricu-

lum. It took a little longer, however, to shut the hospital.

With that experience in mind, I travelled to Manchester

to talk to a group of people with learning disabilities who

were doing something with students that could not be

further removed from this, they are actually working with

the university on a degree course in learning disability

studies. We had come a long way, the idea follows on

neatly from the work I had done with one member of the

group on labour government focus groups that formed the

basis for the development of Valuing People. Then, we

had travelled the country talking to self-advocates about

what they wanted from society, their services and support

systems.

A lot of this had to be ‘translated’ from the stories they

told to a policy speak that was relevant for civil servants,

but they listened and included a lot of what people said

in the resulting White Paper. Whilst working so closely

with government has been watered down somewhat since,

we have still seen a steady rise in the principles and prac-

tice of partnership working and co-production.

But the road has never been easy, as Iain explained

when he originally set the group up, ‘there was a lot of

anti feeling at the start from some of my colleagues who

couldn’t imagine what people with learning disabilities

could offer students. I only got it through with a lot of

support from my professor, but many lecturers were

against it’.

This BA degree transferred to Manchester in 2000 with

Iain Carson, who has since retired.

The year starts with an open evening for prospective

students where members of the group talk about their role

and the subjects they lecture on. Most of the students have

experience as it is part of the entry requirement and come

with ‘the right attitude’, although the applicant who

thought he could cure epilepsy did not impress Richard,

who lectures on the subject from a personal perspective.

He tells of his experience falling asleep on the train home

and waking up in Scotland, a seizure followed and before

he knew where he was the police had secured him a place

in a mental health unit, which from its look he thought

was a prison! ‘It was a shock when I woke up! They

thought I was drunk, I showed them my card but it made

ª 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 85–86 doi:10.1111/j.1468-3156.2012.00747.x

British Journal of

Learning DisabilitiesThe Official Journal of the British Institute of Learning Disabilities

no difference’. Such experiences, although traumatic, make

a lasting impression in the retelling about how public ser-

vices can sometimes treat disabled people.

As a part of their work on the course, the group also

has a writing group. They have produced a variety of

published work but also, more importantly for my choice

of who to interview, were responsible for reviewing and

editing the content of this special issue of the journal. It

has been some 2 years in the making, they started with 17

articles to read, followed up by workshop days to go

through them together. The articles were all meant to be

co-authored, but in some cases they were not, ‘we had to

chuck some out because they were too full of jargon’,

whilst others ‘went the other way and didn’t use any ref-

erences, which is not good enough for a peer reviewed

journal’. It was summed up as ‘it has been a massive pro-

ject, a lot of reading and a very busy summer, but we are

on the last legs now and then we will have a party!’The group meets every 3 weeks, alternating between

steering group and writing group functions. They have

formal agendas and rotate the chair between members

with a learning disability. Members all felt they had a val-

ued role and their comments were listened to. This ranged

from limiting the number of research presentations they

assessed in one go to being more proactive in teaching

and student assessments. This last one took a degree of

work to enact due to universities rules about assessors,

but in one case, the group members ended up going

together with the main staff on student placement assess-

ments and contributed with their own observations.

People with learning disabilities now lecture or co-lec-

ture on a number of topics, including the development of

the self-advocacy movement, methods of writing or sup-

porting autobiography, inclusive research, sexuality, inclu-

sion on Partnership Boards and Challenging Behaviour.

An ex-student is also on the group, she thought a main

advantage was ‘we were able to understand a lot better

because we could hear from someone who was living with

all the discrimination they were facing just to get by’.

There is extra work as the course changes each year to

keep up with current developments and thinking, for

instance, they described how the work on sexuality

and relationships had changed to gender, identity and

sexuality.

There have been practical problems, apart from the diffi-

culties everyone has in finding their way around a univer-

sity campus, there was also the occasional issue group

members faced from some university security staff, Rich-

ard remembered he and others were stopped and he says

he was ‘asked what I was doing on the University

grounds, they thought I shouldn’t be there, it was a big

issue at the time and we were quite annoyed by it’. Issu-

ing staff passes resulted and showing those resolved the

problem.

An interesting issue came up with support, when one

group of students asked for full-time lecturers not to be

there as they felt it inhibited some of their questioning to

members of the group. We struggled to see what these

could have been, but it was agreed, although the pressure

on the tutors with learning disabilities was clear. They

have managed to get a support person in to do more pre-

teaching support, which will enable more people to have

the courage to undertake lecturing as well. Most preferred

co-lectures with the balance these gave ‘Rohhss does the

theory, figures and policy, I speak from my experience’.

Lou told me about how the group experience contrasted

with her time at school. ‘I was told I couldn’t do anything,

take exams and all that. Just because we don’t have the

academic training doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t work

in a university. And we learn here too’. The group was

clear, the learning was not all one way, one of the areas of

learning was greater independence skills needed to do the

job, learning how to travel to new venues to give talks.

There were always new words, Richard particularly liked

‘epistemology’ whilst Lou had that day learnt ‘diatribe’.

She says ‘I’m asked in the People First office if I’ve been

in Manchester recently because I’m using all these new

words and no one has a clue what I’m talking about!’Returning to those people who were originally against

the course, have they changed their attitudes? ‘Well they

are all retired now, certainly there is no opposition and

others find it as inspirational as we do’. And if there were

any challenges left, what would they be? ‘When I applied

for this job I asked about a joint appointment with Lou, I

was told they were not ready for that yet, so maybe that’s

the next barrier to break down.’

And given these times of austerity that we are experi-

encing, what does the future hold for the group? ‘Well, for

the first time we have a budget for the group for next year

so that’s great and the group continues.’

We also have our MA starting in September on Critical

Learning Disability Studies, this builds on the current

course that was very much based in the social model of

disability to one that is able to contain a greater critique of

that.

And finally, would you consider editing another special

issue of the British Journal? Everyone agreed they would,

but said ‘let’s get this one out and the party over with

first’.

ª 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 85–86

86 In Conversation