A key issue for the future: relating disability studies to the diversity of disabled people
Simone Aspis, Shaping our Lives National User Network
Co-author(s): Peter Beresford, Fran Branfield, Patricia Chambers,
Munir Lanali
Abstract
Our aim would be to explore the meanings and aims of disability studies and opportunities and challenges that disability studies offer service user and user controlled organisations, from the perspectives of a diverse range of service users' perspectives. This group includes two people who are involved in local black and minority ethnic service users/disabled people's organisations as well as people with physical and sensory impairments, mental health service users/survivors and a person with learning difficulties. We have experience as campaigners, researchers, teachers/trainers and consultants. This would be a session exploring issues centrally from service users' vantage points but we hope that a wide range of conference participants can be encouraged to come - including those who may not have had as many experiences of engaging with service users.