MN Campaign This is my child - what happened?

[SallyBear]

Huge amounts of fanfare. Guardian article, Radio 5 Live interviews, lots of debate on this board

Thanks all

We'd honestly be interested to hear what you think about the examples we've given of reports we've had about language.

I've got to go out now so won't be posting much for the rest of the evening, but please do keep adding your thoughts and we will check back in and respond.

Ok IA, not KP then. What about a paralympian who has had to live with disability all their lives. How they struggled to get past their disability. What have them the self belief and drove them towards success?

'dead behind the eyes' is a horrible description - i don't care if it was given by someone with first-hand experience of living with AS. it gives licence for all sorts of negativity and poor descriptions

my personal benchmark is if i would like to hear A.N. Other describe my loved one with the chosen turn of phrase - make it personal, the user is talking about a being, a person, who deserves respect not ridicule

Agree Polter and zzzz

Rowan I wouldn't have thought otherwise re the dynamics of the MN staff. Are these individuals working on the team? And as zzzz indicates its a drop in the ocean in terms of living with disability. Also I would worry that those staff with children with additional needs, wouldn't necessarily want their colleagues know the in's and out's of their lives.

In terms of these boards and disabilist language and being unsure of what's acceptable and what isn't - well that's a fair point I'm still learning.

There was a thread on AIBU today where the OP didn't like her dc being called an Aspie, her reasons were valid and pertinent to her/him, but I'd never considered it before. I personally prefer my ds' condition to be referred to as ASD. I hate autistic or "he has autism" as to me, both these words suggest a defineable absolute condition - when it isn't. However, I feel you have all the tools you need to combat this. You could have an SN watchdog group taken from your SN boards. Pick your sample group, obviously large group to guarantee a response to your questions. When something comes up and you're not sure of its context or intent, you could email the group and ask them and based on their responses make your decision.

It's cumbersome but over time you would start to feel more comfortable in what is ok and what isn't and eventually you won't need the group.

Ultimately I think your campaign has legs, you've had the launch, now it's time for direction to keep that momentum going. I don't belong to NAS or any other such organisation, but I've never seen them launch a campaign and immediately get a slot on BBC breakfast. MN has a lot of sway and its names goes a long way. So sway

There could be a lot of mileage in using the hashtag and campaign on the local boards too.

There is the 'family friendly' status that businesses and services are given by MN, so something similar might be appropriate if extended to include families with additional needs?

When the new local boards were launched I did question with MNHQ why there wasn't a SN category, and was advised it would be looked at - maybe it's time?

I echo the fears for the future. It frightens the crap out of me. So much so that I got a social worker for DS4. He's only 6, but I need to start my long term planning for when he enters the realms of Adult Social Care.

This is my reality.

Hello again - sorry to take ages to respond, it's been a bit busy today on reports.

Thanks for your input on the post about the DH with AS. We do hear those of you who still think this post is disablist.

This is one of those cases, though, where we think we're going to have to stick to our guns and say that we disagree with you. One of the things that makes Mumsnet the place it is is that we give people a space to express personal frustrations, disappointments and conflicts (as well as joys and pleasures). And we think that allowing people to express their own perceptions of their own personal experiences is really fundamental to this.

To put it another way: we don't think we can justify a situation in which a poster whose husband doesn't have AS is free to say that they feel he is sometimes 'dead behind the eyes', but a poster whose husband does have AS is not free to say that.

We do think there's a fairly clear difference between what the poster said, and saying 'people with AS can often seem to be dead behind the eyes' - which is clearly a disablist generalisation, and thus deletable.

That said, we do take the points you've made about the damage that can be caused by the reinforcement of negative stereotypes, and we will do our best to be vigilant about this and to make sure it comes in to our consideration of posts that have been reported for being disablist.

@PolterGoose

really in those circumstances it would be helpful if MNHQ automatically posted, reminding people of disablism as well as highlighting TIMC. An 'Ahem' plus a link to TIMC isn't really enough IMHO, there needs to be some substance to MNHQ's comments as most people who hold and express disablist views won't click a link but might listen to an MNHQer posting on a thread.

Fair point PolterGoose and we'll try to make sure that this happens a bit more

@PolterGoose

And, if there are MNHQ staff with kids with disabilities why aren't they joining in on the SN boards openly? Other staff take part in threads on other boards, why not here?

As others have said, we don't think it's fair really to ask any individual person at MNHQ to 'out' themselves in this way. We have MNHQ staff members who are (for example) single parents, expectant parents to twins, or who self-identify as LGBT, and they may occasionally post in the related topic areas, but we don't ask anyone at MNHQ to 'represent' anything beyond their own job responsibilities and the organisation itself - we think it would be a bit unfair and intrusive.

@zzzzz

This is what I think about "speckle". It is offensive because it devalues the term "special" in SN. In the same way as when we say "luff" instead of "love", it trivialises the concept. It is meant to.

OK - thanks for explaining.

While we understand what you're saying about devaluing/trivialising, we're not sure we agree with you when you say that this is what this sort of informal use of words is intended to do. (Indeed, we often get into murky waters when we try to base decisions on what we think posters' intentions were, as opposed to what we can plainly see that they've said or not said.) We think that sometimes, this sort of informality can be a way of coping with an unfamiliar or challenging situation.

@TheLeastAccomplishedBennetGirl

There could be a lot of mileage in using the hashtag and campaign on the local boards too.

There is the 'family friendly' status that businesses and services are given by MN, so something similar might be appropriate if extended to include families with additional needs?

When the new local boards were launched I did question with MNHQ why there wasn't a SN category, and was advised it would be looked at - maybe it's time?

Thanks for this, these are interesting ideas and we'll have a think.

Re. Mumsnet Local: our priority at the moment is to get loads of MNers using their local boards and realising what a great resource they can be. With that in mind we've consciously tried to keep Talk categories to a minimum in Local for now, so that it doesn't seem overwhelming to people who are getting used to it. But we'd definitely be interested in introducing more topics once the sites are lovely and busy.

Thanks also for all the other ideas about possible ways forward for the campaign - please keep them coming.

I have to shoot off again now but we will be checking in again tomorrow