disability hate crime

'Inclusion' is the theme of this year's learning disability awareness week.

Ciara Lawrence, Campaigns Support Officer for Mencap, writes about her horror at seeing the abuse of people with learning disabilities in care homes - and calls on the government to take action. 

Twice a week in Hastings, a group of friends, who all have a learning disability, drink a few pints and catch up at the local pub - just like everybody else.

Disability charity United Response launches their Am I Your Problem? campaign which aims to challenge the indifference, hidden discrimination, and sometimes outright hostility faced by people with learning disabilities and autistics. 

With 94% of learning disabled people unemployed, there is a great need for initiatives that bring them into - and support them - in employment. 

United Response staff are being shown how to advocate on behalf of the people they support.

Disabled people are over three times more likely to be the victims of violence but support is now being provided around responding to all hate crimes - including those committed online.

It has been the subject of endless protocols, campaigns and initiatives. Yet despite all these good intentions, children and adults with learning disabilities and autism, still, end up as the victims of bullying.

About a third of people with conditions such as autism, Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or mental ill health have been the victim of a crime in the past year, according to new figures.

The Anti-Bullying Alliance has launched new resources for school staff to help tackle the homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying of disabled young people and those with special educational needs.