how the UK Government can raise a glass to disabled people in Britain

A year ago I was lucky enough to take part in the Paralympic Torch Relay. In my hand I held the Paralympic flame, it was meant to symbolise a change of attitudes in the United Kingdom, towards disability. Disability was meant to be tackled by society as a whole and not just by disabled people.

Despite this hope, many disabled people are despairing about the changes to disability benefits and feel that instead of being inclusive society is marginalising them through the use of language such as “scrounger”. For some disabled people politicians are not to be trusted because instead of helping to improve disability rights through welfare reform, those rights are being taken away.

That trust can be rebuilt by seeing disability as a positive thing. Today in the House Of Commons there will be an Opposition Day Debate on the impact of the government policies on disabled people. Some MPs will use examples of their constituents to show how government policies are hurting instead of helping disabled people and I'm sure I will find this debate very depressing.

So how can the UK government cheer me up? The answer is take me for a beer or at least give me access information in England and Wales about where I can get one. In Scotland I campaigned for and got a change in the law so that all new licensing applications have to say what access for disabled people their facilities have. This change was supported by all parties in the Scottish Parliament and the licensed trade. Such a move by the UK government has the potential to not just help the disabled people, but people with young families or limited mobility and help the licensed trade. The whole point of the legislation was  to improve access information not to say all pubs have to be accessible. 

Toby Perkins the Shadow Pub Minister through a written question asked if the   UK government have any plans to introduce similar legislation and the answer is no see here . I hope they change their mind and if they do I may just buy them a drink

someone new in my life

For the past eighteen months or so I have been sharing my life with a figure, who at first was on the fringes, but now are front and centre sharing my life on a daily basis. I would like to introduce you to “the Gloom”. Who or what is the “the gloom”? I hear you ask yourselves. “the Gloom” is my name for depression. I was diagnosed with it in March this  year.

My depression aka “the gloom” is on the mild end of the spectrum. I am finding it hard to have a constant mood. I am a yoyo, up some days, down the next. This feeling is not constant it goes and then comes back. It brings not a feeling of sadness but a feeling of pointlessness, I find myself wondering what I should do today because there are not job vacancies and after unsuccessful job interviews, I think, what did I do wrong?

“the Gloom” is in my life for two reasons. Firstly, on the surface I am depressed because I can’t find work, and spend my days looking for work and dream of being a campaign supremo and speech writer. The second reason is probably the underlying reason, I am just coming to terms with my disability. You may find that an odd thing for me to say because I have been disabled all my life.

I am struggling with this because I was brought up to believe my disability was not a barrier to my life However, I have discovered that it is and that realization has hit me hard, Yes my disability has led me to change the law and climb Ben Nevis. But it stopped me from moving to London to take a job with ITV that I would have loved. It is limiting my job prospects because I have to think about my home first and not the job, so it is stopping me from fulfilling my potential.

But “the Gloom” has made me realise what I want to do with my life and that is to make a difference to people. By managing “the Gloom” I know I can make a difference to someone’s life, my own.

CV of a public affairs professional

If you know of anyone needing  someone with media,policy and campaigns experience show them this CV its rather good its mine

Mark Cooper

 markcooperma@googlemail.com

Personal Profile

An award-winning, highly motivated individual with strong communication skills gained through various operational and strategic roles. I have a strong working knowledge of Scottish and British public affairs through experience in an MPs office and through working for one of Scotland’s leading third sector organisations.

I have significant campaigning and lobbying experience both as a campaign leader, as a member of a campaign team and as a candidate in the 2010 General Election. My work has been recognised by the Public Affairs industry. The successful Barred! Campaign – which I founded and ran – won the 2010 Devolved Campaign of the Year at the Public Affairs News Awards.

Education

Aberdeen University (2003-2007)MA (Hons) Politics and International Relations (Lower Second Class)

• Modules included: Scottish Politics, British and European Politics, and Research Methods in Social Science.

Boroughmuir High School (1997-2003)

• Highers: Modern Studies, History, Psychology
• 6 Standard Grades at Credit Level: English, Physics, Computing Studies, German, History, Modern Studies
• 1 Standard Grade at General Level: Maths

Employment

Scottish Labour
Campaign Volunteer (March 2011-May 2011; February 2012-May 2012)

• Data gathering and inputting which enabled voters to be targeted
• Collected voter data on a door-to-door basis helping enable Labour vote to be targeted
• General administrative tasks

Capability Scotland
Parliamentary and Policy Officer (October 2009 – October 2010)

• Promoted the involvement of disabled people in policy and campaign work by collating their views into organisational responses to Government consultations
• Heavily involved in external stakeholder relations with other disability organisations, national media, and civil servants, central and local government and by representing Capability on the Cross Parliamentary Group on Disability.
• Lobbying with the Senior Policy Advisor to exert influence to ensure that laws are passed to improve the rights of disabled people and to help change societal attitudes.
• High-level writing and drafting skills included writing parliamentary briefings, consultation responses, and newspaper articles.
• Conducted research on disability equality, which led to the production of reports, which were used to campaign on issues and inform press releases.

Capability Scotland
Scotland Policy Officer (July 2009 - October 2009)

• Headhunted by Capability Scotland as a result of the Barred! Campaign.
• Led a campaign for equal accessibility for disabled people in bars across Edinburgh whilst raising awareness across Scotland. This campaign resulted in legislative change.
• Liaised with Scottish Parliament and government officials.
• Promoted the work Capability Scotland across a range of media giving interviews, and writing articles, for numerous trade magazines and national media.
• Developed Capability Scotland’s social media strategy understanding the importance of social media in engaging with communities.

Lehman Brothers
Data Analyst (September 2008)

• Hired by the bank but bank collapsed before start date.

Nigel Griffiths MP Office

Officer volunteer (June 2005 – September 2008)

• Worked for Nigel Griffiths during university holidays and on a more regular basis throughout 2007 and 2008)
• Supported MPs’ workload through research, general administration work, and constituent responses.

Achievements

• Founded and ran the award-winning Barred! Campaign. This work was recognised by the Public Affairs News Awards and successfully amended legislation. The campaign also gained national recognition through Capability and other charities.
• Prospective parliamentary candidate in Orkney and Shetland at the 2010 General Election for Scottish Labour. This unique role helped hone my project management and media relation’s skills.
• Was a member of the Debating Society at Aberdeen University and represented the University at competitions across Scotland
• Competent with all Microsoft applications, e-mail and all social media platforms.

References

Available on Request

love is all around

Today is one of those days in parliament when you feel something momentous is being decided, just like  the debate on tuition fees and the Iraq war vote. The issue is today is can same sex couples be married.

I can see both sides of the argument, but I want to explain my point of view. I have spent months thinking about it. I am a practising christian although I don't go to church that often I have found my faith is getting stronger as I continue to fight to find a job it is a comfort to me.

I am in favour of  same sex marriage  and i will admit it i struggled with it because many Christians who i respect said in the press it was wrong. I came to my decision on Christmas eve  during the midnight service. the minister said we have to "put the Christmas story into our lives today into our schools and our work places" the minister who said that is my father.

In my view the Christmas story is about love, The Christmas story says that God gave Jesus to the world because he loved it. A wedding is the opportunity for two people to say to each other in public that they love each other and want to commit to each other in front of their friends.

The second way my faith has helped me to make this decision  is that the new testament talks about equality  how God loves everybody regardless of who they are. this commitment to equality is similar to my own as I really believe that people who would like to commit themselves to each other regardless of their sexuality should be able to do so.

Britain is an un equal society with rich, and poor but by passing the Marriage (same sex couples) bill  Parliament can take a step towards making Britain the equal society we all want it to be.

some thoughts on how I would start to change the work program

I took part in this weeks panorama which showed problems in the work program and I would like take the opportunity to share my ideas on how I would change the program as a whole. My thoughts are nothing to do with the provider who is supporting me to find employment and I will just on disability and employment because that is what I have experience of.

I think there are two main issues with the work program, the first is financial and the second is the actual business of supporting people into employment. Disabled people are seen to be harder to place into employment because they may need extra support to work, for example a person who is depressed may need confidence classes before they can enter the labour market. I have cerebral palsy and am quite prepared to move to find work. This is where I need help because if I do find a job elsewhere in the country I will need help to find accessible accommodation, I live in Edinburgh and found a job in London which I was offered and had to turn down because I couldn’t find accessible accommodation, As disabled people do take longer to support into employment it is right that firms are paid slightly more as they have to do more work to succeed. I found it amusing learning that as a disabled person I have “bounty” on my head.

A Criticism of the Work program is that providers are paid a lot of money. I would like to know did the Government do a cost analysis of doing the program through the job centre? I am asking because I would think the premium paid would be lower, because I would think the government would not want to make money in the same way as the private sector providers, so the overheads would be smaller because as well as costs such as staff profit is not an issue

To help people into work there has to be jobs for the providers and the clients to find to apply for. There can be as many people as you want to have on the work program but if there are not the jobs for them to move into they will be on the program for a long time. That is why the staff who work for the providers do not have the time to work with their clients as I said on the program last night because they have lots of clients but few jobs

Now I will move on to how I would change the program. Firstly I would put disabled people straight on to the work program instead of waiting a year of people claiming JSA before doing so, as happened to me. It maybe different for others.

I would do this because surely the barriers faced by the participants would be the same as on day 365 and if the support they require is to gain confidence the longer the time it is not dealt with the worse it shall be.

Secondly I would use the program as a chance to revolutionise the way employment for disabled people is view in this country. Successive governments have viewed it as providing supported employment through factories such as Employ, In my view supported employment in those environments is only part of the solution because disabled people go to university and college in greater number than they did but there is not a scheme to support them into employment.

I am a graduate and in 2007/2008 I was part of a scheme for disabled graduates run by the disability charity SCOPE which placed disabled graduates with firms and provided support to disabled people for 12 months and at the end of scheme it was up to the firm if they took on the disabled person at the end of that time. In September 2008 I was a placed at an investment bank but I never got my feet under the table as the bank was Lehman Brothers and I started on the day they went bust. I would like to see a similar scheme rolled out nationally. I would also like a scheme to make it easier for disabled people to move home. This is needed because jobs may not be availible for people where they live but it takes time to find suitable accessible accommodation and employers may not wait that long before rescinding the offer of employment

so there are a few ideas on how to improve the work program, I hope a decision maker will read it and give it some thought. But I most of all I hope I find a job so the bounty can be taken off my head.

Did 2012 change the view of disability in the UK

As 2012 draws to a close  the stand out memory I have of the year is when I participated in the Torch Relay for the Paralympic Games. I have the torch I carried  at home at home on my lounge wall. I often look at it and think. Is the flame  of attitudinal change towards disability-that the games was billed to be,  still burning brightly, like the torch I carried, or has it been dimmed to fade away?

To answer this question I have begun to think more and more about what it means to be disabled, so in this blog I will explore what I think disability is and how it is viewed in Britain, then in a second one I will say how this can be changed.

I think disability is a condition and a mindset. My condition is cerebral palsy and yet in my mind I am not disabled. I do not think of myself as disabled but in reality i am. I would love to play sports with my friends. in my mind i am scoring the winning goal for Aberdeen in the champions league final but i know my condition will never allow me to even get close to it because i am a safety hazard on the sports field.

What I have just done is framed my view of disability for you and being framed as a disabled person is something which many people do not like including me and yet for some people its who they are. The media put activists firmly in that box of being disabled first,then being people  I recently went to speak at Kent University and if  the local paper reported the event i would wager that the first words will be disability activist Mark Cooper came to talk to students at Kent University In reality mark cooper came to Kent today to talk students about disability

 

The Mindset of disability is something, which politicians struggle with. Any politician now will say that discrimination for disabled people is wrong and that British society should have freedom and fairness for all but in reality, society is free for some and for others it’s a prison from which they find it hard to escape.

What politicians of all parties have done is not understand that disability is both a mindset and a reality. They have focused too much on the mindset that society should be free for all and not on the realities of how to make it happen.

In technical jargon they subscribe to the medical model of disability, which means that a disability is an issue, which the individual can tackle with help from the state through benefits. When they should look at disability through the lens of the social model it paints a different picture one where the barriers faced by disabled people are the barriers faced by society as a whole so the best thing to do is to remove them.

Getting disabled people back into employment is an example of what i mean 

Successive governments have dealt with the problem by arguing that too many people are on benefits so they have changed the criteria for a benefit. But this only says that the claimant is fit for work it doesnt actually get them into work.

The work program was meant to provide tailored support to help people back into employment, it has not worked because there are too few advisors for the case load, and they do not have the time they would like to work with each participant.  There are 870,000 participants but of those only 31,000 have found work for 6 months or more. Finding a job is like having a disability no two unmeployed people are the same.

  Decison Makers need to be braver on the issue So far they  have used the medical view of disability and just put a stent in the heart of welfare reform when in reality what it needs is a bypass. If they opened up the heart through the eyes of a social surgeon they would see that the way to get disabled people back into work is to have a look at the underlying problems of each case For example I have been on the dole for 2 years and am fit and willing to work. The support I need is not how to write a CV or do an interview but it’s to be able to move house. I live in Edinburgh and found a job in London which I was offered and accepted but could not start because I could not find an accessible place to live. For other people  the help they require maybe transport. So society could  help us by making it easier for disabled people to move home or travel to work

So how is disability viewed in the UK at the end of this Paralympic year. The answer unfortunately is disability is still an issue which the individual needs to deal with rather than society as a whole. How this view can be  changed will be the subject of my next blog.

my remarks to access all areas an event organised by Northwest and Manchester young labour

here is a copy of what i said today to access all areas an event organised by Northwest and Manchester young labour

Good afternoon I’m Mark Cooper the National Disability Officer on the Young Labour committee, it is great to be with you today so thanks for inviting me.

Today is Bastille Day, the day that began the French revolution with the storming of the famous prison in Paris. Politics is often seen as a fortress, with it being hard to break into I is going to share with you my thoughts on how this fortress can be entered. So that disabled people and young Labour members can access all areas of politics. .

There are 3 areas, which I want to touch on

Firstly I will tell you about myself because my experiences have helped shape my political views and given me ideas.

Secondly I will talk a bit about my role as Young Labour Disability Officer and the work I am trying to accomplish and finally I will talk a bit about disability and the Labour party although my thoughts on that could be applied to politics in general

So who am I, I am the 3rd out of 4 children this is important because I was treated like any other of my siblings and my parent fought for me to have a mainstream education and to integrate in society from an early age although at school I was surrounded by adults who wanted to protect me rather than allowing me to make my own mistakes. For example at primary school I was not allowed to fall over in the playground or take part in team sports like football. I wanted to fall over and score the winning goal for my team but I couldn’t. Why did I want to fall over it was to fit in.

My parents had to be firm and with me and the school with me so I wouldn’t be lazy and the school so I would fit in with the other kids build friendships which believe me is hard to do when your surrounded by adults and I still find it hard now. When I was at

Being encouraged by my parents to fit in the other kids was a small thing aimed to make a big difference. They also encouraged us to express our opinion on issues. I have a twin brother who Is also politically active he is in the green party I am thankful for this because if he joined the Labour party and we both ran for leader it would be like the 2010 Leadership election all over again. My dad is from County Durham and is very proud of that. We were on holiday in the area and he took us back to where he was born. At the time I was a conservative party member but I was so shocked that the community he grew up in had been decimated by the closure of the mines by the Tory government I resigned from the party and joined the Labour party. That small idea of my dads to take us there has a huge impact on me because without it I would not be talking to you now

I attended the University of Aberdeen graduating in 2007 and the local paper reported that I overcame my cerebral palsy to graduate so I thoroughly recommend Higher education if you want your disability to be cured.

The best thing I did there was to go to New Mexico for 6 months. It was great for me not just for my suntan but because America is so much more disabled friendly than the UK I don’t mean in attitude I mean in practice

Everywhere was flat and had a disabled toilet so I had a brilliant time rather than constantly thinking about barriers to my life I was able to concentrate on having fun and working instead of thinking can I see my friends? I knew I could.

The time in New Mexico was a small thing that made a huge difference in my life because from that trip I haven’t let my disability hold me back

In 2008 after spending a year job hunting I found a job in banking it was with Lehman Brothers My start date was 13 September 2008 a day forever etched in my mind because I never started the job no I did not have a change of heart, the bank collapsed so my job along with thousands of other just disappeared, I sat in my flat in tears I thought my shot at the big time had gone. Yet two years later I would have gone on change the law to improve pub access

I founded the barred campaign to improve disabled pub access - a subject in which I have no interest! The aim of the campaign was to improve access information to pubs. The campaign changed the law in Scotland so that all new pubs have to say how they are or are not accessible to disabled people this will then allow people to make informed choices about where to go out to

You may of noticed that this speech has a theme to it which is small things can make a big difference and that is the philosophy which I have used during my time as the Disability Officer for Young Labour.

When I was elected in Glasgow I said I would do two things 1) try and reboot the disabled members group. This will give disabled people a voice in the party, which at the moment is not heard and it should be. There are many great disabled members in Young Labour and Labour students but after they leave there is not currently a forum within the party for them. At the moment disabled members are out side the tents looking in when we should be inside the tent looking out. It is up to us as disabled members to say to the party we can help you not you must do things for us

The second thing I said I would work towards it is to ask the party to produce a disability manifesto this would cover things like housing and jobs. In Scotland for the Parliamentary elections we had one, which I thought was great not least because I was on the front of it.

I have also written a disability advice sheet for organizers which detail the kind of tasks people with a variety of impairments can do. The aim of the sheet is to persons out of the equation and just focus on campaigning.

In 2010 I was the PPC in Orkney and Shetland. And I would like to see more support given to disabled people to put themselves forward as candidates. The kind of support I mean is administrative support. When you are seeking selection it is a good move to contact all party members and disabled people may not be able to write addresses on envelopes or it may take them ages to stuff envelopes this may put people off from standing so by offering a small amount of help it could encourage more disabled people to put themselves forward.

Hands up if you have been bombarded by emails inviting you to go to conference here in Manchester in September I know I have! Well I intend to come but it needs to be made more accessible, I don’t mean the venue or the hotels I mean the conference itself. I hope to make a speech, but I can’t jump up and down in the hope of attracting the chairs attention, so how can I participate?

I know I haven’t done any campaigning work during my time in office but I felt if we as party don’t have the infrastructure to support disabled members then what right have we got to lecture others on disability if we cant get it right so ourselves ` by working to towards rebooting the members group and the manifesto these small steps could make a you’ve guessed it a big difference

In 2015 the Labour party faces a challenge, which is to set out a vision of how it would change the lives of people in Britain. It’s a challenge because it has to be a vision which is positive about the future and not just to say the coalition are bad and Labour is good. I just want to conclude with a few thoughts of where I think disabled people fit into that vision.

The Labour has a proud record on disability issues but we need to recognize that we cant just rest on what we did in government and assume because we introduced legislation like the equality act and the coalition are taking away disabled peoples benefits that disabled people will vote for us.

I have always that disability is a strand of equality, then why is it not part of the equalities office? The disabilities minister is working from the DWP that needs to change.

To use a sporting analogy the hardest thing to in sport do is to be behind at half time in the super bowl and change the game plan of how you got there. Well my friends that time has come up to change. Until now the game plans has been to give disabled people rights and support through benefits. Now we have to support disabled people to use those rights. Or to put in another way its time to start seeing disability as a societal issue and not one the individual has to cope with alone. The game plan will be harder to construct because there is one thing that we have to do is to rebuild the trust in politicians from disabled people because it does not exists because as one voter said to me all politicians do is take away my benefits.

That voter was right, all politicians are seen to do is take away benefits from disabled people. For years politicians of all colors have talked about welfare dependency and how this must be changed. I agree but the welfare dependency by politicians must stop too there are other way to help disabled people.

It can stop by addressing concerns of many disabled people like me I am an unemployed graduate I am sent by the Job Centre to A4E to help me to find work yet all A4E offer me are courses on how to do a good CV and interview techniques, they took one look at my CV and said we don’t have any jobs for you so why don’t you become a student again.

I would like there to be a disability graduate scheme or something for people who are not suitable to work for organisations such as Remploy. It wouldn’t cost a lot of money because all that would have to be done is reduce the umber of contracts given to firms like A4E and use that money instead to run this new service. Just this week the government has chosen to close Remploy factories which will place further strain on a system, which cannot cope

Housing is a huge for anyone who is trying to find work and even more so for disabled people.

I have been unemployed since November 2010 and in April 2011 I found and was offered in a job in London which I was unable to take because I could not find an accessible place to live which I could afford. The government is trying to get as many disabled people who can work back into work, but I very much doubt that all the disabled people will be able to find jobs in their locality so some will have to move, but they will not be able to because they will face the problem I did.

I am a social tenant, which means I live in a council flat (or housing association property). Mine has been adapted for the needs of a disabled person. E.g. it has a wet floor shower and lower worktops in the kitchen. This type of accommodation is very rare in the private sector at an affordable rate. So being a social tenant is like having a golden ticket to Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory and not something that one gives up easily. When I tried to move to London I found I was not entitled to help to find accommodation in the social sector until I lived there which is fare enough. But that meant I had would have to leave my Edinburgh flat, if I did this I would be declaring myself homeless which meant I would not be entitled to any help at all, because in the eyes of the law I had chosen to move. There are house swapping websites but that can take months to find somewhere. So if someone is offered a job where they don't live the employer will not wait a long time to withdraw the offer. In the end I had to choose my house over my job

Labour would help disabled people by making a small change to the housing system to make it easier for people to move.

Disabled people would fit into the 2015 vision because Labour policies speak to their needs if you get the same response I did from voter I mentioned earlier you will be able to say no politicians don’t just care about your benefits Labour will support you to find a job or a home

In 1789 that would of thought that by storming of the Bastille in France would be changed forever? The revolutionaries did by doing a small thing that made a big difference!

As Young Labour Disability Officer I have campaigned for a disability manifesto and the re introduction of the disabled members group small things that will hopefully make a big difference

As a Labour movement we must change the way disability is viewed by society small change big difference and by simply having this conference you in North West Young Labour have taken a small step to making a big difference to our party! Thank you