Page 14 - Community Living Magazine 35-3

“I didn’t feel I was treated very well to
the point that when they reorganised the
admin team – I was the only one to have a
disability and the only one to be made
redundant,” she says.
Carter met a manager at the NVQ
service who said they had not realised
how bad things had been for her. “I said
‘you know what, I keep quiet because I
don’t think nobody would believe me half
the time’.”
Then she joined the Disability
Consultancy Service. Again, it was not
always welcoming.
“There were issues and difficulties that
me and my best mate, we had to deal
with and go through,” she say. “It wasn’t
very nice to be honest.”
I ask Carter if she had had any advocacy
Jenny Carter speaks out at Learning Disability England’s conference in Manchester in 2019 herself at this time. “No I didn’t really
have any advocacy support. It was like I
Here to be heard have got to do this on my own. It’s not
right but…”
Did that fuel her passion for self-
advocacy? “Yeah you could say that,”
she replies.
Jenny Carter is determined that disability services should be led “The self-advocacy side of it I am really
by those who use them. She talks to Sean Kelly about setting up passionate about because, you know, we
need to be listened to, but we also need
her self-advocacy company to ensure people are listened to to be heard.
“Which I said to the council meeting on
Wednesday: I don’t want to just be
enny Carter is a self-advocate and a knowledge and skills to influence policy. present – I want to be heard, thank you!”
founder and a director of Together All Around the same time, they became part She laughs.
JAre Able. It is “a self-advocacy of a young people’s self-advocacy group “And we want you to work with us.
organisation and group based in the called We R Able 2. We don’t want you to do something
Wirral which is truly disability led and Carter left school after her first year of about us without us. We need to be seen
run”, she says. sixth form. and heard.
When we spoke, Carter told me about She went on to a work placement but, “Not just seen there, as a token, like:
how she and her colleagues set up after making a mistake there, was told ‘we have got somebody with autism
Together All Are Able 10 years ago. “your placement has gone west so we are in the room, tick’. Yes, you have got
But first she told me about growing up. going to finish you”. somebody with autism in the room, but
She was born in Liverpool but, by the time are you listening to them? Are you talking
she went to school, she and her parents to them?”
and younger sister had moved across the They said we were too old. I Perhaps the lowest point for Carter and
Mersey to the Wirral. don’t think they agreed with Forfar was when the local disability
Carter went to a mainstream school umbrella body asked them to reduce their
“but I got extra support from special what we were telling them. involvement with advocacy.
educational needs. So I was actually Between the lines, the message “They decided that we were too old to
statemented and stuff.” be part of it any more. They [said they]
Her school experience was “reasonably was ‘Shut up and go away’ wanted to get younger people in. It was
good” but she felt let down by the careers because of the work we were doing. I
advice: “It wasn’t great. We were never don’t think they agreed with what we
told that there was self-advocacy. It was “Yes, I made a mistake but they said were telling them. Reading between the
like admin, catering and things like that. ‘we are not going to let you back’,” lines, the message was ‘Shut up and
And, I’m thinking to myself, admin can be she says. go away’.”
quite boring. I like self-advocacy so much A friend helped Carter secure a job at The good news is that out of that came
because each day is different.” Wirral’s Oval Sports Centre doing admin. Together All Are Able. It took a year to set
Towards the end of her school days, Meanwhile, she and Forfar had finished it up and it was registered as a community
Carter and her friend Vicky Forfar found the Partners in Policymaking course and, interest company in late 2011.
out about a course called Partners as a result, the council was starting to I say to Carter, if that was a battle, you
in Policymaking. involve them in various matters. actually won, didn’t you?
Originating in the US, the course aims to Then came another admin job for a “Yeah,” she says. “Those people who Seán Kelly
give people who use disability services the couple of years with an NVQ service. decided they didn’t want us. Well, they

14 Vol 35 No 3 | Spring 2022 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk