Archive for May, 2016

In this guest post Michael McEwan talks about the first time he went to a night club, and the importance of being able to Stay Up Late. I know the first time I went out to a night club it was a big thing for me. I can still remember the night, it was my 21st […]

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Why friendships mean everything I was speaking at Charlton Park Academy today at their Communication Works conference. A lot of the focus of the day was around assistive technology and it was great to see the students, and presenters using iPads to aid their communication. It was also a treat to have a keynote speech […]

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A vision for commissioning I learned a valuable lesson last week at Think Local Act Personal’s and In Control’s Community Resilience Network meeting in Warrington when I was trying to offer my views on commissioning. We were there talking about our work with Gig Buddies and how it’s a project that is not only a […]

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Be a Quality Checker for Stay Up Late Thanks to some funding from West Sussex County Council we’re recruiting for an apprentice quality checker to help us make sure our Gig Buddies project is doing a good job for everyone involved. To qualify for this job you need to have a learning disability and/or autism and live […]

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Read how we’ve linked up with self advocacy group Speak Up Sutton and the campaigning work they’ve been doing… Speak Up Sutton, a self advocacy group based in South West London, have been doing some fantastic work in developing the work of the Stay Up Late campaign and it was lovely to meet the group […]

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What we’re doing about wellbeing for the team Last year was an intense year for Stay Up Late. In the space of 3 years we’ve grown from one member of staff to 4 and from a couple of informal volunteers to over 70 and counting, plus over 70 participants with learning disabilities that we’re working […]

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#CareBnB Assessment and Treatment Units Map In April 2016 a campaign was held called ‘7 Days of Action’ to draw attention to the injustices of the 3000 people with learning disabilities and autism held in Assessment and Treatment Units (ATUs) across the UK. Often these people are also held 100s of miles from their family […]

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Person Centred Support, everyone says they’re doing it but we know that’s not actually the case, because we wouldn’t exist if everything was working well! As part of our Stay Up Late campaigning work we thought it would be helpful if we could interview the people who know how to get it right and find […]

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Find out what Gig Buddies Tom and Pete got up to in their first year together. It looks like they’ve had an amazing time… Last month we featured a great blog post from Kittie and Dean who had been celebrating their first year together as Gig Buddies. (Read it here) It caused a bit of […]

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