When the Hidden Voices are Finally Heard

This year I have had the pleasure of working with Lynsey Hargreaves at the West Glamorgan Regional Partnership who has been working with people with lived experience of learning disabilities around their issues with transport.

The reality is when we talk about disabilities, we often talk about those people who use a wheelchair rather than those who have a learning disability. This is where the Lynsey, me and other third sector organisations have come in to offer support. We wanted to listen, learn, understand and ultimately to create a charter that sets out what good transport should look like for those with a learning disability.

In community transport as with public transport this is an unheard voice and I learned very quickly that these are people that value the freedom that access to transport gives them and they want to be able to travel with ease and dignity.

It was at times difficult to hear of the negative experiences that they had faced when trying to use transport. It was also heartening to hear the good work that some of our CT operators are doing to support better the needs of those with learning disabilities.

We learned several things at the workshop that was hosted by Lynsey and her team. People want and need easy read timetables, they want supportive transport, they want safe spaces in stations, they think that all staff should have learning disability awareness training and most importantly they want to be treated with dignity and respect.

The challenges that a person with learning difficulties face when using transport can be varied and personal, however the Charter that they are helping to create is important. They want their voices heard and to be able to access all the things that they want and need to, and they want to do it using public or community transport.

We at CTA are proud to be able to be part of this work, to hear the voices and to support the distribution of this charter when it is ready.

For more information on why this project is so important and to hear from those people with learning disabilities please see these two films;

Transport Workshop

Transport - Key Priority - Well-being and Learning Disability Programme

Click here to find out more information on the West Glamorgan Partnership board.