London Campaign Network
Connecting our members across London
London Campaign Network
A ‘London Campaign Network’ of self-advocates with learning difficulties and disabilities.
People First (Self Advocacy) was one of 16 projects to be awarded a grant from the first round of the Disability Justice Fund
The aim is to share the campaigns we are working on and to work on campaigns together over the next three years.
We are had our first meeting in November 2024, where we agreed the top three things we wanted to focus on first. These were:
- Benefits and Money
- Advocacy
- Hate Crime
Our next meeting is Friday 18th July 2025.
You can read about our past London Campaign Network meetings below.
Our 3rd meeting of the London Campaign Network - 18.07.25
- Date: Friday 18th July 2025
- Time: 11am - 3:30pm
- Venue: Voluntary Action Islington, 200a Pentonville Road (Near Kings Cross) London N1 9JP
Download the poster here
With the recent announcements about changes to Disability Benefits and the Green Paper consultation, this meeting will focus on Benefits and Money.
We have invited the Minister of State Sir Stephen Timms and the Secretary of State Liz Kendall (Department for Work and Pensions, and other London MPs) to come to our the meeting in July.
You can read the letter to MPs here and the summary of our workshops that we sent to them here.
If you would like to attend you need to book. Email us here
The 2nd London Campaign Network meeting - 07.03.2025
We met at the Methodist Church Hall at Kings Cross. Our focus was Benefits and Money. We had a workshop to discuss all of our concerns about benefits and money, and then came up with lots of ideas and thoughts about how to improve things. We also agreed some action to take before the next meeting.
We wrote a letter and sent it to all the London MPs. You can read it here. We also produced a summary of our workshop to share with them here.
We invited the Minister of State Sir Stephen Timms and the Secretary of State Liz Kendall (Department for Work and Pensions) to come to our the 3rd meeting in July.
You can read the summary notes of the meeting here
The 1st London Campaign Network meeting - 01.11.2024
We the meeting near Kings Cross at Voluntary Action Islington.
We shared information we had gathered during visits and events about what was important to people. We then heard what different groups across London had been working on and then decided what we wanted to work together on first.
We discussed then voted on the three top priorities, which are Benefits and Money, Advocacy and Hate Crime. We then decided which topic to start with. Everyone agreed it should be Benefits and Money.
You can read the summary notes of the first meeting here
Accessible Management Committee training for self-advocacy organisations
We are also piloting a user-led Management Committee Development Programme with our Management Committee.
We will then work with other London self-advocacy organisations to develop and improve it where needed, and then share and deliver it with them.
Strong and skilled Boards are essential to all charities, but we know from experience that it is hard to find accessible training and support in this area.
Many self-advocacy groups have closed or have been taken over and our member groups have dropped by 50% in the last 10 years. We want to work with existing self-advocacy organisations across London and support groups to establish themselves in areas where they don’t exist.
We hope that we can all share the good work we are doing and support each other with important campaigns.
Thank you to Trust for London for the funding for this project.
We want to make sure that:
- People with learning difficulties/disabilities to have a louder voice and a bigger profile
- Self-advocacy organisations to work together and influence policy
- Self-advocacy organisations to be able to manage themselves better
- Groups who are under threat of closure or changes that they don’t agree with to have support
