Advancing Sexual Self-Advocacy for Adults with Learning Disabilities

While working in adult social care for many years, I recognised that people supported are more likely to be sexually abused than their non-disabled peers. In addition, I was concerned to see that they experience barriers to forming and understanding healthy relationships and are rarely provided with information about keeping themselves sexually safe. Wanting to explore this apparent injustice was my motivation for applying to the Churchill Fellowship. I was keen to find new approaches to the prevention of sexual harm, in this most vulnerable community.

I chose to visit the USA and Canada to meet some of the world’s experts and innovators in this field. I learned about many new approaches and techniques, including the importance of linking self-advocacy skills to sexual rights education, the merits of adopting a trauma-informed approach, and how to provide safe, inclusive dating opportunities.

Since returning to the UK, I have used the knowledge and confidence gained from the Fellowship experience to develop a range of new training materials. This has included co-authoring a training pack for staff working in social care settings, on behalf of the national training agency, Skills for Care.

Despite many years of working in social care settings, latterly in fairly senior roles, I recognised that low self-esteem sometimes held me back from acting on my passion for social justice. For me, getting the Fellowship was like an injection of confidence. Realising that I could go to the other side of the world and talk with authority to complete strangers, was an amazing boost. In addition, the faith and expectation received from such a well-respected organisation has been a source of inspiration.

Increased self-belief has enabled me to share my Fellowship report at conferences, in journals, and at meetings across the UK and further afield. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone and led to a re-energised career path in my 70s.

Last year, with learning disabled colleagues in Lancashire, I secured a lottery grant to develop a training pack based on sexual self-advocacy, a concept that I had discovered in America. It is about giving people who are often more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse the tools to be their own first line of defence. The idea marries practices from the self-advocacy movement with those from trauma informed relationships and sexuality education.

The 12-month project involved me working with 10 groups of self-advocates to produce a boxed based workshop pack, which includes an interactive video-based workbook. Two videos from the resource illustrate the campaigning nature of sexual self-advocacy: Introduction and What is a sexual self-advocate.

The materials have been really well received and are already making a big difference to the lives of people with a learning disability, who say that they feel safer and better informed as a result of using them.

One of the most rewarding moments came when a Fellowship host – a well-known champion of sexual self-advocacy and relationships training in the USA – received the video workbook. In a full circle moment, she described it as ‘amazing’ and has asked to use it in her own training.

I’m thrilled to have been able to channel my Fellowship experience into a practical tool that will have wide and long-lasting benefit to an often-overlooked audience. I will be eternally grateful for the opportunity given to me by the Churchill Fellowship to learn from experts in North America. I am appreciative of the springboard this has provided for sharing the learning through writing and training delivery in the UK. But most significantly, I value the confidence boost that has come from being a Churchill Fellow.

For further information about the sexual self-advocacy training pack and contact details, see here.