 Ond we're going to be making a start, because this is a really important session, and it's not without coincidence that this is in the main room so that it's being recorded, because this is a subject matter that really does need airing. There's something really beautiful as we all know about co-operation and people working together to meet their collective ends. It's also a real, we're going to hear about the alignment between co-operation and the disability movement. But there's also lots of things that we could be doing better as a movement. And again, for those of you that were at our AGM yesterday, you'll hear me talk about a bold new strategy for co-operatives UK. And that includes having a real, building a strong and diverse movement and how we need to be a beacon in that. So I'm really delighted that we've got this session because we need to understand how we can be better at this, not just at co-operatives UK, but across the whole movement. And I've got a really incredible panel that I'm going to be introduced, but I'm over the moon to have a very good friend and an amazing co-operator. Not in the sense that you know it, as in she's very collaborative and does amazing kind of work across campaign for disability. And you also might recognise her from the television because she is an actor as well. So I'm going to hand over now to Sherri-Lee Houston to run this session. Thank you Sherri-Lee. Thank you Rose. Good afternoon everyone. I am so excited to be here. I am Sherri-Lee Houston. I'm a white woman, curly brown hair, sat in a very large wheelchair. Just a perfect example of co-operative and how disabled people work together. I started to pour the water for everybody and then realised I couldn't lift the bottle. And immediately we shared. I think hopefully some of those principles and values that we're going to talk about throughout this afternoon. I've got a brilliant panel with me. I'd like if everybody wants to introduce themselves and say a bit about themselves briefly, we'll start with you Gregory. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Gregory Roberts. I am involved in disability advocacy as the carer of a son with cerebral palsy. I am an inclusive economist. I am very serious and very committed to making things happen. For those who are often at the fringes. So I'm delighted to be here with you all and to talk more about what that experience is. I am on the board of the co-operative college and I, with my colleagues, we are trying very much to deliver courses and courses for each of you. And in my regular day-to-day life I'm a director at strategy global consultancy where we provide consultancy services and strategy in development, in economics and so on. And I'm happy to be here with this wonderful panel. Thank you. Thank you Gregory. Cheryl. Hi am. My name's Cheryl Barrett. I'm the vice chair of co-ops UK. I co-chair the co-op parties disability forum. I am a co-founder of the co-operative guild of social and community workers. I'm a mental health social worker by qualification but a community worker by practice. I am a disabled person. I have what is commonly called an invisible disability. My disability affects my nervous system. I have dysautonomia which means I'm dysregulated in all the things that everybody else doesn't even think about. So that's breathing, heart rate, digestion, standing, keeping standing, sitting. And so I spend a lot of time controlled fall ins. I'm not an acrobat but I've become very acrobatic. And one of the things that I would like to do is break the ice amongst co-operators, the able-bodied, the disabled, so that we can have conversations that make the co-operative movement inclusive. And we can make the reasonable adjustments because we're not embarrassed to ask each other what those adjustments might be. Thank you Cheryl. Steve, hello. Hi everyone. My name's Steve Graby. I am a co-operator and researcher. I'm a founder member of a very small workers co-op called Typology and I'm now also a member of a fairly large housing co-op. But the main thing that I'm here as is research in the field of disability studies and in the last year, year and a half-ish, I did research projects about disabled people's involvement in co-ops, so including workers co-ops, housing co-ops and multi-takeholder co-ops. And yeah, but also a person with a so-called hidden disability, although that's a bit of a contentious term. But yeah, I am doubly neurodivergent autistic and ADHD, so if I ramble off topic or have difficulties keeping time, that's probably why. I'm sure Cheryl are you being a very experienced chair and such, can ray me in if necessary. I'm happy to help. I'm also a fellow neuro ADHD and so I understand with those rabbit holes that we all tend to go down. Steve, fantastic. It's really exciting to hear about your research. It'd be great if you could tell us an overview of the research and also why you did that. What were the key aims behind it? Okay, so why I did it? Well, I suppose I've been involved in both the disabled people's movement and co-operatives in one way or another for 10 or 15 years. And I've thought for a long time that there are significant commonalities between the two that haven't been explored enough. So yeah, but I got the funding to do this research from the Independent Social Research Foundation, and basically they're a funding body that funds research projects that perhaps more mainstream funding bodies wouldn't fund. Is everyone okay with the sound from this mic, by the way? I'm hearing an echo and I don't know if other people are. So yeah, basically there were three parts to it initially. There was a survey of co-ops which actually didn't produce very good results, but the main parts of it were semi-structured interviews with disabled people who either were at the time of interview or had previously been members of co-ops, so most of those members are either workers' co-ops or housing co-ops, in some cases both. And also some case studies of some individual co-ops which were specialising in things to do with disabled people. So one of those was signallised, so I know you've got people here from. Another one was Colm Valley Care Cooperative, and the third one was Enabled Works, which is a really interesting workers' co-op that came out of the closure about 10 years ago of a government funded sheltered workshop for disabled people, which when that was closed down, some of its members basically managed to take over its operations as a workers' co-op. And yeah, I can talk a bit more about any of those later if you like. But I suppose to give a very general overview of the things that I found, there was a lot of confirmation of the syllogies I would say between disabled people and co-operatives, all the disabled people's movements and the co-operative movements in terms of some key shared values. So values of inclusivity and egalitarianism, values of control by the most affected in a particular situation or what the disabled people's movement calls nothing about us without us, which obviously is also the co-operative principle of member democratic control. A kind of a mutual support and solidarity that's not from a top-down charity kind of way, but that is from a grassroots bottom-up perspective, which is linked to an idea of collective self-determination, which is very important in the disabled people's movement concept of independent living, and fitting with the other core disabled people's movement concept of the social model of disability, which is basically the idea that people are not disabled by their own impairments or physical or mental conditions, but by the inaccessibility of the society that we're living in, a thing that a lot of my participants found very important in regards to co-ops that they were members of was a focus on changing environments, so living and working environments to fit people, rather than changing people's fit environments. And I think a really big thing for a lot of disabled people who are in co-ops was the fact that the self-control of being a co-operator, rather than say in housing renting from a private landlord or from a council or an employment working in a co-operation where somebody else is the boss, if you're in control collectively, you can change conditions to accommodate people's differences in people's needs. So I can talk about examples in fact, if you like, or, you know, I'm aware that we've got a short amount of time, so obviously I suppose what you want me to talk more about. That's fantastic. Thank you. That's really interesting, all the different things you're saying there. And actually I think it's really key, is the bit you're saying there, Steve, is that having that onus of people being able to voice their own decisions, because for so long we all know this and we've all seen it in our history, disabled people have never had the voice. We've had things done for us by other people, by people who are non-disabled, who've made those choices of what they felt was best. And actually what's really happening now in the disabled people's movement, are they coming together collectively aren't they Cheryl? And you were one of the people that Steve stood it. If you'd like to tell us more around that please. It's very interesting because as a disabled person who navigated the able-bodied cooperative world, if that makes sense, the world is primarily able-bodied. So you're navigating an able-bodied world that has values and principles that are very similar to the collective of disabled people and the way that we speak about ourselves, define ourselves, and also I think link to the civil rights movement by heritage, I'm Irish traveller heritage. So there was a lot of synergies for me and as someone who's been a community worker and used co-operation as a tool, there was two things that happened for me. One was a cathartic kind of thing, it almost became a counselling session. And Steve was great because there was a lot of things that had happened on that journey of trying to stay in, fit in. I've been the vice chair of the co-op party, the vice chair of co-op to UK. And there was a lot of time when navigating that able-bodied world I had to negate a lot of things that would have made it much easier for me in order to feel that I was keeping up and that I would be recognised as able to be the vice chair or a chair. So that's really interesting. Is that a theme, Steve, that came throughout as well, that people feel that they have to fit in? You were talking about this as well, Gregor, weren't you, about the changes. People don't make changes to enable people to fit in. You were talking, if you'd like to tell us a little bit more about that yourself. I think the example that we reflected on was just the fact that families with disabled members, disabled children, shall I say it grows on us so that you almost take it for granted until there's a moment of reflection to say, aha, we have to review where we're going for a holiday. Is there gravel on the path leading up to one of the villas? Or one of the places of sleep? Have they ever delivered a service to disabled people? What is the pool like? Do they have people who might take just a look on your child while mum and dad might go to have a drink or something like that? All these are questions and many others that must be answered by families and carers were simply going on a holiday. So there are issues. It's really interesting what you're saying though, because you're listing things that you've had to consider or adapt and it's the same as you share, or you're saying that people haven't almost offered things to enable you to then adapt and it's like having your best holiday, putting your best practice, putting your best work forward. Was this a theme that came up a lot, Steve, that people feel that they have to fit in rather than they can voice what their different needs are? Are you talking about within co-ops? Oh, great to talk about. Life in general in co-ops, because I know co-ops are keen to make changes in different ways. So I think this was a very key thing, actually, that came up in my research. So the level of understanding of issues around disability and disabled co-operators' access needs within the co-ops that people are into, members of, was very varied. There were some people who had some quite negative experiences, at least one person who essentially felt that they were bullied out of the co-op because of their access needs not being met or being sort of, you know, perhaps willfully refused to be met. That was quite a particular situation. On the other hand, there were people who felt very much like, even though when they joined the co-operative they were the first disabled person who'd been a member of it. This happened to both workers and housing co-operatives. That, because of the co-operative values of the people in the co-op, got it very intuitively about what their access needs were and, of course, they would meet them and would apply flexibility. But people did encounter some, you say about fit again, that there were a few people who, for example, were larger workers co-op that I interviewed to disabled members of. Those people had struggled a little bit with, first, there had been an expectation that every member of the co-op would be able to do every job in the co-op, which I think was a very laudable principle, you know, coming from a radical idea of equality, of, you know, we don't have bosses or managers whose work is somehow seems more valuable than everybody else's work, so the idea of everybody doing everything was, felt in that co-op to be quite cool to the co-op identity. But for some disabled members who, you know, whether because of a physical or a cognitive impairment, may find a particular job very difficult, and be expected to be able to do that, even though it was quite peripheral in some ways to what they had to do, so that was one thing that people talked about a struggle with. Within housing co-ops, obviously housing co-ops are a big spectrum of different attitudes towards kind of how commonly people live. Within them, so I'm talking mostly about the much smaller ones, where, you know, it's one big house, and there's maybe 10 or 12 people, you know, sharing one big kitchen, I've lived in quite commonly, that was a bit of a double-edged sword, so some disabled co-op races found that incredibly positive because it basically met their care or social reproduction needs on a very sort of background level where it wasn't necessarily about sort of something that you'd be able to get funding from social services for, but it was more a background level of, well, if I'm struggling with cooking today, somebody else is going to cook today, or that kind of thing. For other people, the potential for interpersonal conflict was a big source of anxiety or sort of expectations around, I guess, having to be very sociable with a lot of people all the time were things that they struggled with. For some people, both those things were going on at the same time. It's interesting, isn't it? Cos a lot of that's down to dialogue and people being able to feel that they are in a place where they can have those conversations. And one of the key things we wanted to do as a panel we're keen to do was open the conversation up to you guys as well. So this isn't a passive discussion because on stage you've got a lot of great lived experience and great knowledge here. So it's key, isn't it, show how to make this change within co-ops. And it's finding out where you guys are at in the co-ops and how much you, where your starting points are for the next change, because some of those things that Steve's mentioned in your research is about simple things like, because I think people sort of think that that thing that everybody has to do the same means that everybody should be physically able to do the same because actually somebody's brain might be used better. I know I'm certainly better at talking than I am at lifting things and moving things. Do you know what I mean? So put people to their best use in a way, I suppose, as an ethos. So it'd be great, has anybody got any questions or has anybody feel that they are integrating? I suppose the first question are disabled people integrated within your co-ops? Do you feel that that is something that's happening or a raise of hands of feeling that there could be a change and how we can support that? Do you feel that, sorry, just a point, just because you've answered us really. But do you feel that you're, so you're just saying though that you feel that there is integration? Brilliant. Lady at the back. I think we're just winning to switch them. Wendy Willis, central co-op. Yay. Thank you for your help. I just wanted to say, I think co-ops do a lot. I suffer with arthritis and in my co-op, central, they've been really good. They've had conversations with managers and they've asked me what I need and they've done exactly what I've needed and they haven't tried to put me in a box and they have conversations with all different people with what's wrong with them to get them help that they need to support them. So, that's what I send all the way through my journey with a co-op. Oh, that's brilliant. That's really positive. And I think that's something, isn't it, Cheryl, that could be taken into the co-op. I mean, what would your key guide be of how to approach ensuring that disabled people are included so they can participate, because it's about everybody participating not to the same extent in a way, isn't it? If you'd like to talk us through that a bit more, please. We have to, and I think we do in the co-op world, understand that disability doesn't mean one thing, that it's various. The impairment that a person might have doesn't affect them the same way as it might affect another person. We're very individual and we're very individual in our needs, we're very individual in our aspirations and we're very individual in what we can bring to the co-op world just like everybody else. So, and I think what I pulled out of that day was there was some joy and some sorrow in hearing other people's experiences and enjoying an experience like yours that this is great, having some sorrow with other experiences that are not great, but absolutely feeling that the co-op movement, there's an open door that we just need to ask, we need to have an ask. And what the ask that came to me listening to all those people on that day was that all we want is for the values and principles of co-operation to apply to us equitably, that we're not in the co-operative movement to be done too, that we are co-owners, that we are co-operators, that there is an equity within the movement and to enable that that we don't have any embarrassment between ourselves, between the able-bodied and the disabled so that we can just have that ask that for me to be an equal member of the co-op I'm in, I will need this, this and this. I had a conversation with somebody yesterday what I might need in terms of because I'm time rich, because I'm disabled, I cannot work, I'm not, my body's not reliable for me to be able to get a contract and say I can do this because I don't know at any time whether I don't even know now what I'm speaking to you if I'll get to the end of the sentence, it's that volatile if you're nervous system are just dysregulated, that's how it is. So if you bear with me and kind of accept that's how it is but even within that I'm still a valid member and I do bring something to the party and that that is mutual and I can be mutual that would be my ask but different people have different asks in this movement and so I think it's negotiable and that's what I'm asking for is the negotiation within the movement between us all but the other person I was talking to he was time poor because he works full time so the reasonable adjustment that allows me to be able to do it in my time allows him to be able to participate in his time because he's got to work and he's got a family and do you see what I mean? So if it works for us, if those reasonable adjustments work for us they work for everybody because we just have a culture of being flexible and working around people to allow everybody to participate and engage in the best way for them it's what co-ops are good at so I think we're tweaking here to make something that is currently good brilliant So a really good example from that would be ask everybody what their access is because as you described that gentleman was time poor his access to engage meant he needed support in a very entirely different way to you did and I think that's what is really interesting about access isn't it Gregory, because people assume access is just for one individual or the disabled individual and surely you've had examples where access in your family has enabled other people to do things that they wouldn't have been able to do if that access hadn't been put in place Absolutely, absolutely and I think in a very real way for the movement it's just to have the conversations as it were to open the channels, to speak with each other to know more about what we might need as a unit, as a whole body as a group of people I think it was Martin Luther referred to this garment of destiny and commonality in one of his letters we have it already we are cooperators, we are used to that we are decent we know what we want for ourselves and so it's just to find out how can I make that happen for the next person I find that really exciting as well because I think cooperators, cooperatives are going to be the most keen on people to be solution focused and to incorporate deaf disabled and neurodivergent people because so often one thing to remember is our communities have been so used to being told this isn't for you you're not to be included the only way you can be included is if you fit in to whatever our perception is of how people should be Steve you're nodding, did that come up quite often? To pick up particularly on what Cheryl just said about being time rich and time poor and flexible ways of working that was one of the very key things that came up particularly in the people who I interviewed with them as a workers co-op and also according to my own experience because of the reason I started a small workers co-op along with a couple of other people in similar situations was essentially because feeling like there were disabling barriers in the way of either of us getting so-called regular employment and starting a workers co-op that was quite explicitly at the time three myself and the other two co-founders were living in different cities and so we were working entirely from home in different places working remotely this was long before the pandemic obviously this has become a slightly more normal way of working now and there's a lot I could say about the pandemic and disability that I absolutely don't have the time or space to go into right now but several of the people I interviewed had also founded workers co-ops for very similar reasons and several people felt very strongly that it was only in the workers co-op that they could actually be in self-supporting employment at all simply because of things like to give an example for myself I have quite I have difficulties with sleeping it's very would be almost impossible for me to work in nine to five days but being in a workers co-op where we set our own working hours I can work out the times when I'm capable of working and you know it doesn't matter whether that's nights whether that's weekends whether or not that fits into the so-called normal working day pattern and you know people talked about how enabled works was a really interesting example as well because although they're a warehouse-based thing with a physical workplace so they do have more of a nine to five working day but several of the people I interviewed there talked about how it was sort of seen as a talent of one of the co-founders of knowing exactly how to put the right people on an assembly line in the right order so that the job could be done with each person doing the bits of the job that within their impairments and their capacities they were physically capable of doing and if you put the same people on an assembly line in a different order it wouldn't be possible to do it like that so this element of flexibility coming up in multiple different ways I think is very very core to the co-op advantage for disabled co-operators and similarly in housing co-ops obviously it's a very different context but you know people being able to make adaptations to their own housing that a private landlord or even a social landlord would never allow them to and that can range from quite obvious things like wheelchair ramps to things that might seem as much less obvious so for example in one large student housing co-op that I interviewed a couple of members of who were neurodivergent they talked about things like being able to change to paint the walls different colours and to change the lighting in their rooms so that it fitted their sensory comfort needs which you know it's a very small thing that wouldn't necessarily even be seen as an excess need by a lot of people but it's the sort of thing that private landlords would often just refuse to let people do so yeah I think that's a very core element of what makes co-ops sort of potentially so life changing for disabled people which you know is obviously an indictment of how petty and awful capitalist society is but you know yeah that's that's really interesting because it's really key how co-operatives can lead this change in inclusivity isn't it because all those things you've just mentioned there make so much sense and actually it's about somebody living a better life doing that and I think so if you can talk a bit more about the disabled people's movement because we're very similar in that way isn't it yeah and I think as well that for me the big correlation between the disabled movement nothing about us without us and the co-op movement nothing about us without us in terms of equal membership there's a clear understanding there that we have the right to be autonomous not to be done too but to be doing with in a collective and if you've got an impairment sometimes you cannot do it on your own but if it's a natural phenomenon that you're doing things to get there and you can add something as well as subtract something that it is mutual you maintain your dignity in your personhood and if we can move that into our labour all of us here know how hostile it is in the world outside for disabled people me sitting here now and being recorded I've got pit for life because one of the things that is said about me in jest but it's true and I don't mind because it helps spread the messages Cheryl Barrett does her best work in bed because if I'm laid flat I'm less likely to dysregulate therefore I can think better I can concentrate better I'm less likely to get the adrenaline that will give me adrenaline fatigue I'll get the fatigue anyway just trying to keep up right and sitting up and it doesn't mean I want to be confined to my bed I have enjoyed coming out meeting everybody and I do have to amble between the chairs just in cases of control for but most people know it leave me to it or just leave me for a while because the blood will go back to my head and I'll get up if when my eyes are opened I don't get up that's the time to kind of give me a shake and get me up but what I wanted to say was we have been coerced and forced by the DWP into work that we cannot possibly do we will fail we will lose our benefit and we're sitting speaking to you today there are disabled people who don't have a voice who are being coerced who are not living lives because they then apply for benefit or they can't work and they need the benefit and then they are so regulated and have to conform I can't work because nobody would employ me because I'm not I feel as a person I'm a reliable person I don't have a reliable body and there's a difference between who I am as a person my body will and won't do and I think I'm accepted but most people here I'm accepted as a reliable person I'm just operating in an unreliable body the DWP won't do that so I'm fortunate that I have a GP who has noted that for me this is therapy that if I didn't do this my mental health would be so severely affected that I couldn't participate I couldn't be a person I couldn't give any benefit to the world I can only extract from the world who wants to live like that and that's the thing so many disabled people are being forced to live like that when we met I was laid down on my computer on its side so I was working from bed and I think there's that thing because there's almost there's a fear of being the disabled person allowing the world to see that side of them as well that's where co-ops can really come in by inviting that offering because I presume in co-ops you offer how you can work is that something you'd encourage as well what would the key bits of advice you'd say about having those conversations and how to facilitate those conversations absolutely and if we can be who we really are and operate within the co-op world as we really are sometimes laid down sometimes wheeled sometimes sometimes I'm on wheels, sometimes I'm on feet sometimes I'm on my ass trying to get up that's the reality of it but there is opportunities in the co-op world to create employment that we can do nobody would employ me but the DWP after trying to push me into employment that I couldn't do finally gave up the goat and let me have the pension that I'd work 30 odd years to earn to me but they would take it back off me again it's so weird that we're given something and if by using that something we are enabled they take it off us and make us disabled again and that's the whole point about it's not just the impairment that disables us it's the way we have to navigate the world and the hostility in the wider world and co-operation for us is a refuge this is our oasis and the place where we can design a world where some of us that currently cannot work could work because we can do our best work lying down we can do our best work when we're able and sleep and rest when we're unable but still be considered a valued member we're still a valued member and these people at the back of this room shout out to Alan Dutzen from SCDG who does or works like that as a co-operator and Chrissy Melody at the back Chrissy if you need her any disabled people because this is going online she fights in court for people to be able to get their pit for to to stay in work whatever there are disabled people who are co-operators who are we're doing this so if we could get the support in the co-op movement to do more of this to mainstream this that it's completely normal for a disabled person to be part of a co-op and not only a co-op that is wanting to do things to or for disabled people and I've got my granddaughter in here today we have a relationship as we also have a relationship as OT support worker to get me here today you know we have relationships that are very fluid and co-ops can help us to maintain our relationships not to disrupt our relationships and to be in the world and the co-ops can learn from that as well absolutely because Gregor you're nodding and also I mean this is quite a tricky question but as a parent it's looking at how your family member you obviously want the changes to happen to ensure that your family member doesn't have the experience to say I had where can you feel co-ops can come into it with that because you've obviously got a lot of knowledge of the co-op movement as well I totally believe that for the co-operative world for the co-operative movement the return to investment and all the time we spend together is not simply about a bit of a few pennies you get back from the co-operative group or being invited here or something like it is to bring change and to make our society better to make our world better and I feel strongly that you know taking an approach to treat each person equitably that is to say we appreciate not equally but equitably we appreciate the barriers to engagement the barriers to achieving certain things and let's remove those barriers the barriers that might exist for for Steve they are different from the barriers that would exist for me remove the barriers so we can operate on a level playing field that's what I'd like for my son with cerebral palsy as he grows now as approaching 16 and therefore would be interviewed for PIP and all of that it frightens me when Cheryl says that if she were to go abroad for a day that could trigger a review of her support arrangement so what would it be for my son to go see his grandma and grandpa you know and these are the things that we as a group together as Niko is sitting there always say for every problem there is a cooperative solution we as a group together must start pushing to bring not simply the attitude and all the changes among people within the cooperative group but also the changes in the broader society I think we are at a good place to start making things happen and the world is listening now aren't they and the world when we were younger weren't listening which is a really we're in a very valuable place what advice would you say was the key things that came out of your research Steve for this change that's a hard one I would love to say the bigger cooperative organisations investing not necessarily just financially but also in terms of time and organisational support in co-ops that are focused around disabled people because for example at the moment a small group of people very early stages including some mutual friends of ours actually I mean very early stages of talking about a personal assistance user consumer co-op which has some similarities to what Andy Burnham in the panel yesterday was talking about but it's not quite the same and it feels you know lots of people would absolutely love that to happen it would make a massive difference in many ways and then in disabled people's lives but the organisational steps of getting there and I know there are various co-op support organisations out there there are co-ops themselves that give business support to other co-ops unfortunately all of these have to charge a lot of money all of disabled people don't have money it can feel quite daunting to work out how to actually start a co-op it's something that perhaps because it's not so familiar in wider society there's a lot of a lot of steps involved so it's difficult to know what order they go in so yeah in terms of sort of help and advice I would very much like to see yeah something around getting new co-ops started as well as existing large co-ops you know there's definitely advice that I can give and that other disabled people I know co-ops could give towards existing established co-ops in terms of inclusivity for disabled people but I think that support for new co-ops that are focused around disabled people sorry if that was a bit off topic to your question no that makes a lot of sense because it's saying that actually we need to start recognising the gaps that have been left for a lot of well over the whole of time really isn't it and where inclusivity hasn't been kept and actually by disabled people now having a voice it's also coming out of your research you're saying there is need so as well as looking at the needs and requirements within your own co-op it's looking at how your co-op can help other people flourish I suppose is that and I'd like to offer that I'm a co-founder of the co-optyg guild of social and community workers and the majority of the social and community workers in that guild are themselves disabled including our secretary Pat Juby there at the bank with her dark glasses on shielded from the light if you want to get in touch with us I'll leave her email details with the feedback from here and the guild will sign post you into places so if you're embarrassed about asking an individual disabled person questions come and ask us we'll answer them if we can navigate you around systems and support and tell you places to go I'm happy to do that so we'll try to move from here and one of the great things that solidified my mind something you know when you have kind of something that you kind of do but you haven't quantified you haven't thought about it in a a little short phrase Steve did that for me when he put his research to get there he segmented it into co-operators co-operation co-operatives and I thought I've been doing that all my life that navigation so if we can help with the navigation of disabled people with able bodied people as co-operators co-operatives but also the co-operation you know the stuff that is not a business but is a relational thing between people for me to sit here and do this I have a risk that I'm going to lose my pip and Chrissie is going to have to fight two years to get it me back but it takes a co-operative to get me in this seat the people who got me a shout out to Rose I went to that day and I was straight on the blow to Rose and said Rose this needs to we need to move this has got to keep going the conversation has got to get wider we've got to keep it going we know this is a starting you know the guns fired we're on the starting blocks this is a process it's not an end just being here but I know in the guild and I know Rose will do it and the team at Corts UK will navigate people backwards and forwards talk to us let's keep the conversation going let's put some things in place and let's get to the development workers the worker co-operators etc so that what we're building and developing is inclusive it's DNA is inclusive I've got really excited when you just said that let's keep the conversation going because that's something we advocate in our network community is we're not just coming in to have a chat about it this is a chat that now what's our next step what's our next step until these conversations don't need to be had anymore until disabled people are on all panels and the conversation inclusivity because there's a lot of things from disability access and from disabled people themselves that means it's much much richer with us than without us so what we've got about 12 minutes left what key tips would you say would be a good starting point because I know that this has been recorded so hopefully other co-operators will be watching it and some people might not be including disabled people as well as they would like to but maybe you're stuck by terminology maybe you're stuck at the first fear of saying something wrong or just not knowing how to navigate those conversations what would you each say would be a good tip or a good way to look at your own co-operative and what advice would you give Yes, I'll go first I'd say start the conversations facilitate the conversations we understand the natural tendency to engage with those who look like us are as able as we are a womb for some reason we think immediately that yeah that would help my cause but make the engagement with others who you might not be able to get anything from other than to aid in advocating for them let that be your cause we are co-operators let us start there I think you meant a really key point there because there's an assumption sometimes I think that's come up quite a few times it definitely came up in some of the stuff Steve was talking about is people make assumptions of what somebody needs or if somebody's communication requirements are different then people say it would be easier if I say it for you but you won't be saying what that person requires so it's taking the time isn't it find the way to engage with somebody because everybody has a different way and actually that makes it much richer in your co-op itself as well Cheryl mine would be the same don't make an assumption ask and if you don't know who to ask we will help you navigate with that ask not every disabled person might want to get into the conversation at that time or at all but we can make sure that you can get to people who will but again because you've spoken to one person and there are collectives of disabled people come in now the people who are part of Steve's research have kept together the co-op party has got the disability forum and when we spoke to Joe we said we don't just want to be the disability group for the co-op party we're not just a resource for you we are a collective of disabled people we want to be able to work with the whole of the movement and with the disability movement outside and with the unions and everybody else and he said go for it excellent so we're starting to have a visible presence with a telephone number you can ring which is useful for both of us so please, please do that's really exciting because it is we need a presence and it stops because the thing is I think it's a great industry the media industry is responsible the storytelling industry is responsible for a lot of attitudinals hammering in the wrong opinion that we should be fixed, we should be cured we should be saved that we're less than we're other than that as that is changing I think we always, you know, as disabled people we need to grab this change and use the voices that people are now allowing us to have Steve, what would your advice be? Well, I can mainly would like to second what Gregory and Cheryl have both just said make the contact with disabled people and disabled people's organisations I think if the thing that from my particular perspective I would add to that is disabled people's organisations and co-operatives and the co-operative movement have in some ways got very similar and very parallel histories and very similar and very parallel principles but they haven't necessarily had a lot of contact with each other so immediately after the event that Cheryl and I had back in March that Cheryl has referred to a few times that sort of marked the culmination of my research I then straight after that got a full time job working on a disabled people's archive project for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People which is one of the longest standing disabled people's organisations in the UK I've been involved in them on and off for quite a few years before that already my having got that job is the reason why I haven't completed and put online my research report yet so that's a little bit hanging in limba although there are some short things in my presentation from that event which which are available online but the reason for mentioning that is looking at the history and as you mentioned Cheryl the media industry you know I've been working with documents including magazines from disabled people's organisations going back to the 80s and 90s talking about disabled people's representation in TV and film then there's a long history and a huge body of criticism of dialogue and planning coming from the disabled people's movement that has very similar and very parallel aspects in it in many ways particularly around self-control and self-determination to the co-operative movement but it kind of seems that both signs don't know much about each other disabled people's organisations haven't necessarily seen or heard much about co-ops and co-ops haven't necessarily seen or heard much about disabled people's organisations so I think contacts and dialogue between the two could be really fruitful for both I think that's really true because it is that have that assumption that disabled people never had a voice or never made a shift and when you get together with a load of disabled people who are working well together to do that it's so empowering and it's so exciting and a lot of really rich things come out but it's never been shared just to fill you in slightly I set up Triple C who set up Dank and we have the disabled arts and network community we've got 1,600 deaf disabled and on neurodivergent creatives having those dialogues with the industry because I think I always found that that was and we always found that the way the media tells about us is the thing that needs to change because then we need our stories aren't on the news that is why we all know it's why there are two out of three deaths for COVID where disabled people we do not resuscitate notices put in those that would never have been allowed if we had a stronger voice our voices weren't in the news and I think that's where co-operatives can really empower and come together Steve that's really exciting to hear that the people who did your research have come together and are keeping a dialogue because that's really rich can you tell me a bit more about is the way people can contact those people so after the event in March I set up an email list I must admit I've not done anywhere near as much with it as I could or should have done because I got this full-time job straight after the event and things have been left a bit hanging so there hasn't been a lot of activity on it yet but like there are some really many really good people with really important stuff that they're doing in various different co-ops and various different disabled people's organisations who are at that event who have come together I have a website which is disabledco-ops.uk and an email address I created which is disabledco-ops or one word at mail.com it's just mail not gmail and if you email it on that then it will be great to get the ball rolling a bit further than it currently has been and we're really lucky to have Cheryl here who is the vice chair so in a way because it'd be great if co-ops could have this on every single agenda and I think that's probably a really good tip is every single item on your agenda look at access in that or look at disabled and neurodivergent people in that and where how you're including those people because that's the easiest shift that's the easiest way to make the change isn't it just wondering has anybody got any questions thank you Nick Matthews Heart of England this is more of an observation and a comment than a question but I think it's valuable because of the experience of what happened with us we came across Dr Steve Graeby's work a couple of years ago when we first published the co-operators disability paper I came across it myself personally and I showed it to our guys at the business because I think that there was a sort of binary thing about disability you're either able bodied or disabled but actually it's a huge spectrum isn't it and what brought this home to us was when we were planning to do new stores some of the daff things that seemed daft afterwards which made a huge difference was having slightly wider aisles which make no difference whatsoever to fully able body people but make a life's difference to people in the position that you're in for example and other things that I thought were really fascinating was when you put the tils in the self service tils the day they go in everybody who uses them is disabled because they don't know how to do use the stuff and what you discover is that everybody almost everybody needs some level of assistance and support the other thing that we learned from Steve's work was that was a the cooperative principle of autonomy and independence applies in spades to disabled people and it's that thing about making assumptions about what people need instead of waiting a little bit and asking them or listening to what they say they need and what was refreshing we changed the way we trained our staff when we did the new stores to make them more sensitive to this and what was great a couple of weeks back I was in one of our shops which had gone through this process and one of the customers in there they didn't know who I was from I don't know I was just starting to be there and he said to one of the staff I said I love your shop I usually prefer it to a competitor down the road because of the way the staff helped me when I needed to do certain things and I thought that was like that didn't cost us anything all we had to do was to rethink the way we trained those people in the store and what we asked them to look out for and once they had gone through that and started doing it they liked doing it that the whole atmosphere of the place was better when the customer relationship was better so not only is it good for the disabled people it's pretty good for business I think you summed up exactly everything there that we've been talking about is that actually you have to include disabled and neurodivergent people to find out what would be most beneficial but then also by implementing that it makes a change for everybody else and actually that is what's really key is that it's not just about access for the disabled person or highlight putting a spotlight on them if you make a change for everybody else it makes a change for business but it also makes a better working environment for everybody and that's really really imperative that was a really really interesting panel thank you to Steve thank you to Cheryl and thank you to Gregory and thank you to you Cheryl of course for everything you do and like I say this isn't certainly not the end of the conversation it's just the start of the conversation and we will absolutely be looking at what we can do to help co-ops to be much better at this