Advocacy and Accessing Life

 

The majority of my work is advocacy and accessibility based. Working with disabled people all around the world invites me to keep my practice deeply flexible and adaptive to the unique circumstances of each individual. This is maybe the most joyful and fulfilling aspect for me, and I am grateful for every single person who invites me to explore their rich disabled experience with them.

My practice is firmly rooted in the values of Disability Justice, I advocate for / problem solve with people using anticapitalist abolitionist values. I always try to facilitate safer spaces for people to explore their access needs and self perception in ways that are not based on traditional measures of value, and invite them to consider how they can understand their experience of disability in ways that are liberated from ableist norms, whilst still making space for everyone to be honest about the harmful stories they have internalised and the barriers that those stories maintain in their lives.

Some examples of this include:

  • Working closely with disabled people in applying for benefits, grants, care assessments, better healthcare access, housing, education, workplace adjustments, and helping with any associated admin. This work often includes extra work around how a person’s family feel their disability should be managed and understood, which includes research into cultural norms and practices that help us understand how to move forward with the work safely.

  • Radical occupational therapy sessions that are trauma-informed, and centre exciting and unconventional approaches to understanding how to access safety, functionality, pleasure, comfort and ease

  • Working with people who receive either professional or familial care to make sure it is meeting their needs and that challenges with dynamics, standards and boundaries are navigated in ways that are safe for the care recipient. Caregiver abuse is a huge issue facing disabled people across the world and

  • Substantial research into adaptive devices, aids, tools, mobility aids/devices/vehicles, and eating practices of disabled people. A big part of the work used to be around distributing information on accessible practices, but i’m incredibly relieved and happy that so many people have started doing this kind of work now, through so many different formats and platforms, so I don’t tend to focus on it as much.

  • I use examples in popular culture and news media to publicly apply critical analysis and commentary through an anticapitalist abolitionist disability justice lens, I get messages from people all over the world telling me how helpful they have found my analysis, which never stops feeling surprising.

  • Facilitating broader understanding of disabled perspectives and experiences, as well as researching and disseminating information with a particular focus on COVID-19 and other public health and safety precautions for disabled people. 

 

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