Every time I speak at work I have three voices. I have the
unusual position of being the policy and campaigns officer for
three learning disabilities charities -
Voice UK,
Ann Craft
Trust and Respond.
It's not freelance or contract work, I have three employers and
consequently, three bosses. As such, my job is fundamentally about
co-operation.
It is about three charities pooling their expertise and
authority to gain a stronger voice when talking to policymakers.
Although this format is a little unusual, charities regularly try
to unite their voices to achieve change - look at Make Poverty
History and the Making Decisions Alliance.
However, we campaigners are not as
proactive as we could be in talking to each other or uniting our
voices on a more day-to-day basis, outside grand coalitions. I am
as much at fault in this as anyone else. The result can be missed
opportunities and so less change on the ground. The best example of
this is on an issue which, in many ways, unites us all - disability
hate crime.
The murders of Steven Hoskin, Raymond Atherton and Brent Martin
represent the extreme tip of a nasty iceberg. They unite
campaigners in anger and a desire to do something. There is a lot
of agreement about how to tackle disability hate crime among
campaigners and a lot of good work being done.
Yet, it is not too unusual for me to hear about good initiatives
to tackle disability hate crime after they are formally launched
and to think that this was something the charities I work for would
have been happy to help with.
However, there are also opportunities I should have drawn
campaigners attention to. I should have suggested to other
charities that they use the equality impact assessment on the
government's new crime strategy to push for action on disability
hate crime. I pushed hard and was annoyed to find the crime
strategy did not mention disability hate crime and that we were the
only disability charities to comment to the Home Office.
Our evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into
the human rights of adults with learning disabilities contained a
lot on disability hate crime and I imagine that many other
responses did too. I wonder whether there was a missed opportunity
here to co-ordinate our lobbying on this issue and so give the
joint committee a clear, simple set of recommendations. Simple
steps such as sharing drafts of responses to consultations and
endorsing each others' policy positions can make a difference, but
I and other campaigners don't do this as often as we might.
The trouble is that campaigners are always conscious that part
of our jobs is to promote our own charities. There is sometimes a
lingering concern that joint working will dilute our charities'
brands and be too much effort. Being a three-for-one policy and
campaigns officer it is something of which I am particularly aware
and which my role shows does not have to be a problem.
There is scope to be more proactive in working together. We can
start by joining voices on disability hate crime. I will if you
will.
Robin Van den Hende is policy and campaigns officer for
Respond, the Ann Craft Trust and Voice UK.
This article appeared in the 29 November issue under the headline
"When it comes to fighting hate crime we have to raise our
voice"