Dear Sir,
Our new group was started because my daughter, aged 22, who has special needs, was cyber bullied by a so called friend. I then found out the same weekend. my friends daughter who also has special-needs was bullied in a local park.
After these incidents, which were reported and are in the hands of the police – it really got us thinking about how to protect and help vulnerable people who don’t have any self-confidence or low self-confidence to stand up for themselves.
The hardest part, I found, was the actual waiting for the police to come out to take a statement, this is the time I found very frustrating, just waiting while the whole time I wanted to go and sort it out myself, as any parent would. Luckily, I have a great friend, Anne West, who I was talking to all night, but a lot of people don’t have that support in the early hours in the morning or at any time.
Anyway, this is how the ‘All Disabilities Matter’ group came about, it gave us an insight to what people have to deal with through social media sites. We started by thinking what we want the group for, how we wanted the group to work. This was easy, the private group was so everybody with any disabilities, mental health issues or people who just wanted to talk to somebody could, without any criticism or negative comments. That’s why all the help and support has to come from each member to make it work. There are a lot of helplines and charities out there, but sometimes people just need to talk to others that experienced the same or similar issues as themselves.
A lot don’t want to contact organisations first, so this group was ideal because it was 24/7 round-the-clock. We contacted David Wilkin, from the Disability Hate Crime Network for advice on how to set up a private group, which he was only to pleased to help and advise us – kindly giving us loads of great ideas.
We then designed a logo that was eye-catching and colourful to look at, Googled how to set up a Facebook private group and ‘All Disabilities Matter’ started.
We then sent out invitations to our friends to spread the word, designed our own posters with a brief description of what the group was about and put them up around town, in shop windows, posting it on different sites and spreading the word. Before we realised ‘All Disabilities Matter’ grew from strength to strength, day by day.
Emma, from Customise It, now offered to sponsor us and produce our T-Shirts for free, as she thought it was a great thing we were doing; we contacted Carol at the PCP for permission to have a photo taken outside the centre for a promotional picture; Keith from Able Novak Taxis was pleased to support the group, as well as help out with the admin side, as his company could transport wheelchairs.
We have members from all over the country, we also have David Wilkin in our group. It has been promoted on Suicide Awareness, Aycliffe Anything Goes, Tees Durham Alert, Bishop Auckland area Covid-19 Community Support, Local shops and businesses have also posted on their social media pages.
Donna Martin, from 5 Acres Community Gardens, very kindly offered to host our first get-together, which was held on Wednesday 9th June and was a great success. Some of our members came along to meet others, some local Councillors turned up and offered their support to what we are trying to do.
We now have 435 members, in only 5 weeks, which is fantastic, we have received brilliant feedback, it’s already starting to help a lot of members and we are hoping to take it around the schools so everyone can get involved. The group have 14 fantastic admin male and females on board who are willing to help others through their own experiences. We also contacted other support groups and charities so we can support each other: The Hub of Wishes, Junction 7, RedforEvan, 5 Acres Community Gardens, Options, Red Balloons plus others. We want to say a massive thank you to everyone who is supporting our group and all our members who are making ‘All Disabilities Matter’ group work.
The last thank you has to be to PC Julie Lamb, for the way she helped my daughter throughout this awful incident. Making her feel comfortable and understanding her condition.
