To celebrate Learning Disability Week 2025, Brandon Adventurer Janis, and our Chief Executive Helen England, will deliver a keynote speech at the Care and Support West Annual Conference. Together, they will talk about how we must learn from the past to create the future of social care.
Advancing people’s rights
When we examine the progress we have made as a society in advancing the rights of people with learning disabilities over recent decades, we can note some significant milestones.
Choice and autonomy
From the Human Rights Act 1998, to the publication of the Valuing People White Paper in 2001, to the Care Act 2014 and its emphasis on wellbeing and the initiation of the Transforming Care programme, we have taken positive steps in furthering opportunities for people to live as independently as possible and with choice and autonomy respected.
Now we stand at a pivotal moment in the timeline of social care in this country. At this junction in the journey, important work is needed to determine how we secure the positive future that people who draw on care and support want.
Learning from the past
Brandon Adventurer, Janis, and our Chief Executive, Helen England, will be co-presenting their keynote speech at the conference. The heading is, Back to the Future – and yes, the iconic film trilogy features in their call to action!
They will share some powerful reminders of how things were for people with learning disabilities. They will highlight how important it remains in the present day, to listen to people’s experiences and how they have shaped lives and memories.
We should work together to ensure we never go back to the restrictions of those settings. Instead, we should embrace the progress we have made through key pieces of legislation and the different models of support that have emerged as a result.
A hopeful future
As is portrayed in the second instalment of the film, actions from the past and present shape the future significantly. Furthermore, the challenges being experienced in the present by people who draw on care and support, by families, by providers and by local authorities, mean that we need to think in a radically different way about how we can secure a hopeful future for social care that is outcome and asset-focused, meaningful, and sustainable.
The social care journey
Helen and Janis will set out the case for action to ensure we build the social care future we all want to see. A future built on co-production and inclusion, and one that focuses on what people can and want to do, and the lives they want to live.
They will share stories of people supported by Brandon whose life experiences reflect the wider journey taken by social care, as people with learning disabilities and autistic people moved away from institutional living and now have increasing opportunities to live their lives the way they want to.
These include Brandon Adventurer, Kate, who says: “I lost complete control over my whole life, it was taken away from me. They took away my independence… I was very depressed when I was living there and couldn’t see a way out – I felt completely stuck and trapped.
“Luckily, I did move eventually – I ended up going from service to service, one to the other until I found where I am today.
“Today, I am confident young woman, happy and I now have two jobs which I love. I feel valued as a person and now know what I’m capable of.”
What do we need to do?
For every defining moment of social change, barriers to change exist. But there are many inspiring examples we can learn from where people have worked together for positive change to achieve greater equality and social justice for groups who have experienced historic marginalisation.
Everything we do now must be informed by our past and focused on the future. That means resisting the temptation to preserve the status quo and investing in the quality of relationships, partnerships, and collaboration that can create conditions for positive change.
For real and meaningful progress in social care, and to generate momentum on the path to a successful future, leaders must amplify co-production and inclusion in all planning and decision making. The voices of people with lived experience are essential to our shared vision. Finding the steps towards that vision that will take us from the present to the future.
We should be willing to test and learn together, to reimagine solutions to our shared challenges, and to apply our learning in practice so that people and communities can thrive.
