An online education event held on Friday 30 April 2021
As the local elections approach, Neurodivergent Labour asked: What do we need from our councils?
Many of the services that neurodivergent people rely on – including adult social care and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities – are provided by our local councils. But a decade-plus of austerity has seen them starved of resources.
Councils also have responsibility for other areas which affect our lives – from planning to libraries, from leisure to the environment.
They also employ, between them, millions of workers, many of whom are neurodivergent.
We will welcome five guest speakers, and will ask them to address the needs of neurodivergent people in their particular sphere of local government.
- John McDonnell MP will explain why he supports ND Labour, and why voting (and challenging!) Labour is the best way forward for neurodivergent people.
- Nikki Hughes, a member of ND Labour’s Executive, will talk about how councils can do more to meet the needs of autistic and other neurodivergent members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
- Gethin Jones, Labour candidate for the Senedd, will talk about how Labour is addressing neurodiversity in Wales, and his experience of working with neurodivergent people, many of them failed by social provision, in the prison system.
- Joan Martin will speak about her son Osime Brown, and how his local authority could have done much more to support him when he was younger, and the devastating consequences of its failure to do so.
- Andrew Berry from Islington Unison, will speak about local counils as employers, and the fight for a better workplace for neurodivergent and other workers.
The event will be broadcast at 6pm on Friday 30 April on Neurodivergent Labour’s:
- Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NDVLABOUR
- Twitter feed: twitter.com/NeuroLabour
- YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPVn5LjzEvDb1K1jBSPF-g
It will also be broadcast on some other channels.