Annual Report

Our annual report 2017-2018 takes a bird’s eye look at our work, and focuses on key areas that highlight our impact. Throughout 2017-2018 a central focus of our work has been to enable disabled people and people with experience of mental health difficulties to lead ordinary lives. As you will see from reading the annual report, this approach underpins all of our work whether it be our Quality of Life programme or the Common Ground Community Connecting project.

Another focus of our work for several years now has been increased emphasis on individuals who are labelled as the most complex and challenging. For these individuals, whether they have profound and multiple learning disabilities or whether they find themselves in a locked setting or excluded in other ways from the community, their day-to-day experiences are often characterised by a lack of access to the most basic human rights and freedoms. Our work facilitating person centred plans, our postural care work and our new More Than Words training all focus on improving the quality of life of some of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised individuals.

Over the past few years we have spent time reflecting on the organisation’s brand and what work we will develop and what work we no longer wish to pursue. There are several reasons we would not pursue work but the main one is getting involved in work where we are not given enough freedom to achieve good outcomes for individuals. We obviously expect a challenge and significant obstacles in our way, but there has to be sufficient will and some like-minded individuals in organisations that commission us to bring about a sustained change, otherwise change is not possible and people are set up to fail. We have always thought this way, but our commitment to this approach has been strengthened in the past few years. As a result all of the work you will read about in this annual report has resulted in great outcomes, in partnership with individuals who are committed to achieving equality and ordinary life opportunities for disabled people and people with experience of mental health difficulties.

If you are interested in the work we undertook in 2017-2018, please see the report below.

Latest

Associates
Quality of Life approach
Joining The Dots Training

Community connecting is a simple approach to embedding people who may be socially isolated into their communities. We all have skills, talents and interests that can connect us through mutually beneficial relationships.
Coproduction Masterclass Training

Coproduction is a philosophy, so what it looks like should seldom be the same. It is not about process, it is about people and a belief system that supports improved outcomes for people.

Who we are

Changing Our Lives is a rights-based organisation. We work alongside disabled people and people experiencing mental health difficulties, of all ages, as equal partners to find solutions to social injustice and health inequalities.
National Postural Care Strategy

We all need to look after our posture. For some of us it's as simple as sitting up correctly at our computer. But for those of us who struggle to move our own bodies, for example if we have a complex disability, looking after our posture is even more important. If we don’t look after our posture, this can lead to debilitating health complications.
Mental Health People's Parliament

The People’s Parliament is a strategic body led by MPs with recent lived experience of mental health difficulties. Its function is to hold decision makers to account for improvements in services and supports so that people who experience mental health difficulties can have an improved quality of life and be in greater control of their own mental wellbeing. The Parliament is located in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, just outside of Birmingham.
Where we work
What makes us unique
Safe Places

The Safe Places scheme is based on the belief that everyone has the right to feel confident and safe going out in their local community. Lots of people feel unsafe at times in the local area; this might be because they have experienced crime or because they simply feel unsafe. For disabled people, older people and others who feel vulnerable this often means they don’t go out at all. The Safe Places scheme enables people to feel more confident, access their local areas more and know what to do.
Beth's Story

How Beth broke the mould around post-16 options by designing her own future.
Best practice
Katy's Story

No one's too disabled, or too affected by mental health difficulties, to lead an ordinary life.
Annual Programme

Our specialised team combines extensive experience, highly skilled and tenacious, professionals that are known for an innovative and outcomes based approach to practice and delivery.