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This report shares evidence from GDA’s recent Mental Health Research Project which also builds on findings from GDA wellbeing check-in calls and survey including failures in statutory services to provide accessible mental health supports.

It calls for holistic services that support disabled people’s physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing.

The Research finds that disabled people are aware of what is needed to support their wellbeing and how they can maintain or improve their mental health but that there is a distinct lack of support from statutory services when a disabled person requires interventions for mental ill health.

The Report calls for action across 5 areas-

1. Involve and Listen to Disabled People

2. Eliminate barriers to access

3. Invest in accessible and holistic wellbeing services

4. Address gaps in services

5. Promote and uphold human rights.

Learning & Events Bulletin Autumn 2022
• Online learning. • New in-person learning.
• Menopause support group. • GDA Peer Networks.
• Social Care Expert Group. • Drivers for Change.
• Important info about COVID-19 & flu vaccines.

GDA’s response to the National Care Service (Scotland Bill) is the result of a series of events and discussions with GDA’s Social Care Expert Group, meeting online and in person, over a number of months. This response also draws on GDA’s significant experience of dialogue with disabled people over two decades, including members representing the views and experiences of younger disabled people, Black, Asian and minority ethnic disabled people and LGBT disabled people.

The response outlines GDA’s position that the NCS must be shaped to respond to people and communities who need and use social care services.

The Bill, future amendments and the service created must also be built on rights – both human rights and the rights to Independent Living enshrined in UNCRPD Article. These rights should be enforceable.

The success of the Bill and the National Care Service it seeks to create will be dependent on more detailed amendments that make specific commitments around the creation, implementation and delivery of the service on the ground by individuals, local care boards and accountability at a Scottish Ministerial level.

Fundamentally, we support a National Care Service and firmly believe that this must be done on a National basis. However, more legislative commitment is needed to create a human rights approach to social care as an investment in society.

This report from the Disability Workstream of Glasgow City Council’s Social Recovery Task Force, supported by a researcher from University of Glasgow’s Centre for Disability Research, makes recommendations to remove intertwining poverty and employment barriers affecting disabled people. The report describes the range of policy levers available at UK, Scotland and Glasgow levels to address disabled peoples’ poverty and reduce Scotland’s Disability Employment Gap.

The recommendations in this report will enable thousands of disabled people in Glasgow to be able to improve and secure their economic and social contributions to the city, to gain greater opportunities and higher incomes. Ending poverty and removing barriers to work for disabled people will ultimately benefit everyone in the city.

Disabled people face barriers, inequality and poorer outcomes across all areas of life. These are inequalities that Glasgow City Council has the power to immediately mitigate and reduce - working with DPOs!

For decades, disabled people have been striving to influence change: to eradicate barriers, accelerate equality and realise our Human Rights. It is clearer now more than ever that disabled people’s equality will benefit the whole of society.

Our engagement with members throughout Covid-19 demonstrated that, although we may all be in the same storm, we have most certainly not been in the same boat. For disabled people there have been fewer lifelines within reach - and particular inequalities for disabled women quickly emerged.

One group of GDA women described the “triple whammy” of:
being disabled
being a woman
and dealing with Covid.

Alternative formats of this report coming soon!