Changing Our Lives is a rights based organisation. We work with disabled people and people with mental health difficulties of all ages to deliver solutions to each particular need, and strive to achieve positive, individual-focused outcomes around rights, health and social inclusion. We know that no one is too disabled and no one's mental health is too challenging to lead an 'ordinary life'. We all create our own version of 'ordinary'; that may be going down the pub with your mates, going to University or bringing up a family. Disabled people and people with mental health difficulties are often denied these everyday aspirations. Our work supports people to make them a reality.
Our activities are coproduced with disabled people and people with experience of mental health difficulties; they are all solution focused and change dependent on local need. Some examples: People's Parliaments led by people with learning disabilities as MPs, quality checking of services led by people with lived experience of disability and mental health difficulties, arts based projects where art is used to challenge inequality and start conversations e.g. performance poetry raising awareness and challenging mental health stigma, individual planning and rights based advocacy with young disabled people and disabled adults who have been institutionalised over years.
