UK launches Balancing Act in Brighton

| 8 May 2024 | 108 views

Written by Tom Collier.

I moved to Canada from Brighton in the UK six years ago. Returning to Brighton last month to work with Sally at Amaze (Sussex) and Fiona at the Brighton and Hove Parent & Carer Council was an interesting exercise for me on both a personal and professional level. I like to stay clued up on British politics as much as I can from across the pond, but to meet with Sally and Fiona in person, as well as their peers and colleagues in the community, was to hear in raw detail about the very contrasting joys and challenges of navigating life in Brighton for families with special educational needs, in ways that you don’t normally hear about on the news. I learned about my home country in a whole new way.

The launch event itself provided a unique platform both for celebrating the wins in the community – like those around collaborative working – as well as giving space to the challenges experienced by families – like how austerity has further impacted local authorities and healthcare provision – that we hope this research project can shed light on and begin to address.

Around 70 attendees were present to celebrate the annual Parent & Carer Council awards ceremony, recognizing the contributions of community members towards people with disabilities and their families. Sally, Fiona, Beata and myself then introduced the project to the audience, and Mary led an activity to engage the community in the design of the study, asking their views on “who the research should speak to,” “what questions the research should ask,” and any other questions they had about the research.

For me, the thing that resonated the most from that exercise was a desire to focus on the many stakeholders and services that people with disabilities and families will interact with on a daily basis, and ask how they can better work together, how they can access more funding, how they can be made more useful, and how they can ease the burden on families, to make daily life that bit less complicated.

I was also reminded of the responsibility this project has to the participants we will be working with, including those not present in the room; many attendees expressed the need to be sensitive to how ethnic minority communities in Brighton access supports, and how the different faith groups might feel supported.

We heard about the frustrations that people feel towards politicians and local authorities, and we also heard inspiring stories about the supports Amaze and other local organizations provide – especially the Parent and Carer Council partner groups who were in the room that day. The event perfectly encapsulated the importance of aims of this project: namely, to explore how we can ensure access to a balance of well-designed supports for people in Brighton, in the UK, and across the globe.

A huge thank you to Fiona, Sally, Paolo, Mary, and the whole team for organizing such a meaningful event and discussion.

School of Rehabilitation Therapy