MNHQ here: should Mumsnet sign up as a member of a new campaign on children with disabilities?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Mumsnet's been asked whether we want to sign up long-term as a supporter of the newly launched Disabled Children's Partnership. So, as ever with these things, we said we'd ask what our users thought.

Here's what the DCP has to say about itself:

"The Disabled Children’s Partnership (DCP) is an exciting new collaboration between 25 disability and children’s charities (listed below). As charities we have come together in the shared belief that health and social care services can and must be better if disabled children, young people and families are to get the support they need to enhance their life chances. The partnership was founded in 2015 to build on the excellent work of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign."

"The partnership will work with disabled young people and their families to launch a major new campaign in England in 2017. The campaign will set out to challenge the political status quo and proactively raise the profile of the challenges that so many disabled children, young people and families face."

"The concerns, experiences and stories of disabled children, young people and their families will be at the forefront of the campaign, and therefore need to shape its development."

"Members Steering Group
· Action for Children
· Contact a Family (Chair)
· Mencap (Secretariat)
· National Autistic Society
· National Children’s Bureau
· Sense (Treasurer)
· Scope
· The Children’s Trust
· The Family Fund
· Together for Short Lives
· Well Child
Supporters
· Carers UK
· Carers Trust
· NDCS
· Ambitious About Autism
· Disability Challengers
· Working Families
· Whizz Kids
· Family and Childcare Trust
· Blind Children UK
· Rainbow Trust
· I CAN
· The Communications Trust
· The Seashell Trust"

We here at MNHQ think this looks like a good way to maximise campaigning impact on health and social care issues - but of course as ever we want to know what you think, so please do tell us whether you think we should sign up.

Thanks

I think This Is Our Life is very apt but perhaps too close to "This Is Your Life" (is that even still on?) for its message to be clear.

I also like the idea of withdrawing from engaging. It might be worth putting "I am not here to engage with disablist remarks" (I guess could be a stock image) to register our opinion without commenting, and then resolutely not engaging.

I know!

What if we all just post

Everyday Ableism

and nothing more?

sadly all that would do is bread more posters to come out of the woodwork and post bile, while nothing gets posted against them, propoganda will be spread, Mail articals to prove over diagnoses....

Because let's face it MNHQ will do fuckall.... maybe move the thread to classics or something.

We shouldn't have to

I have a vague idea that posting something would derail the thread, though. A kind of non-violent protest.

Who are you talking to? I'm not disablist.

Stop saying that! My best friend is a and she uses the term herself.

Etc

Would provoke more involved input from MNHQ. And they couldn't possibly delete a calm measured "I am not engaging".

And no, it shouldn't be necessary but it currently is.

Fwiw neither I nor anyone in my family has disabilities or SN (as far as we know) so I am here as an ignorant ally rather than talking from experience.

I think a similar thing has been suggested in the past, or maybe it was just me imagining each of us posting, I AM THE SN BRIGADE, whenever these posts/threads appear in a Spartacus stylee

Yes it's a good idea but my point was that HQ should take action so we don't have to resort to that :)

Yes, that was early June iirc. I posted "I'm with the Brigade" a few times but very few liked it so it didn't catch on.

I'm actually suprised MNHQ don't get it. I really thought after last time they were going to do something.

I'm just still speechless and focussed on the gold star disability example given by mnhq. I keep trying to respond to something else and it keeps popping back into my head and I'm sat here going ...!

(Followed by kicking myself and saying "beyond, why are you surprised, why are you letting yourself be bothered by this?")

A lot of Muslim posters left due to attitudes here recently. They felt unwelcome. I wonder if the same will happen with people dealing with disability.

I don't honestly see how MN could be a member of the campaign when judging by the labelling thread they don't really have a grasp of what is disablism or even what constitutes a disability outside of their narrow definition of being it present from birth and or with dysmorphic features tbh.

It's a case of left hand, right hand clearly. The left hand is all set to campaign, yay lets stamp out disablism, the right is all "nah, they're not even disabled enough"

I'm utterly shocked by the comments on the labelling thread. This is why I don't want to try to get stuff like the disabled person's freedom pass I know I'm entitled to because I'm worried I'll just be judged for "not being disabled enough"

Beyond: I had a similar response to a report of a poster using the terms mouth breather and window licker.

MN didn't feel that it was clearly enough related to disability to warrant removing it.

I'm a freelance copyeditor and proofreader.

I have been mulling this since last night. I came to this thread, was diverted to the 'sauna' thread, saw red, came back to this one, hence to 'labelling'....

AIBU has a LOT to answer for, IMO.

I came to MN having googled Piedro Boots - my child was being referred for them and I had no idea what they were. I found the SEN Board, and over the years have become good friends, including RL good friends with some of the posters I met on those boards , 13 years ago. The support was enormous, I learned so much about disabilities that I had never before encountered or even heard of. Everyone on the boards in those days seemed to listen and learn - and then empathise.

And then came AIBU, and mass growth. The very premise of AIBU is adversarial. As a question, it starts with an attitude. A position to be defended or attacked. Both the threads that have caused upset and aggro this week have been in AIBU. Posters are routinely rude and dismissive of each other on AIBU threads. People 'gang up' and make comments about 'the brigade' of another viewpoint.

I am all for free speech. I think no good comes of retreating into being offended, and usually try and keep calm and discuss things through. But AIBU gets treated like a blood sport, and it pervades the whole atmosphere of MN.

I got help from MN-ers with something so huge - I had to make a decision (with my child) about amputation. I had things in my head that I could not voice to anyone in RL. The support and understanding and lack of judgement I got from MN-ers - those ones with whom I am still in touch with - has stayed with me through thick and thin. THAT is what MN can do for parents who need help and support.

Do whatever you can to restore an atmosphere of respect and support , and sure, get involved in partnership campaigns for things that matter for parents - MN has 'welly' - but have a think about the whole environment.

Oh, and I meant to say (though maybe it implicit) there is no way now, with MN as it is, and the crass, ignorant, aggressive, impersonal empathy-free posts that go on, that I would have posted the thread that helped me more than any other.

The labelling thread was a bit too close to home for me as DS1 has aspergers syndrome and at 10 years old he manages to "fit in" quite well on the surface. Although he very much feels like an expat in this world and loves being with other children who have autism.

As this thread has gone on I am worried that a campaign like this will involve a lot of discussions by people who think they know what it's like and then nothing will change.

Exactly ellie - Who exactly are these people and what experience do they actually have. The problem I have is there are too many do gooders and 'experts' who that they know everything and think they know what a sector of the community really need but have no actual experience of it.

A lot of Muslim posters left due to attitudes here recently. They felt unwelcome. I wonder if the same will happen with people dealing with disability.

This has already happened.

Yes, I mean will it happen again, now