Baring Report: UK Community Programme 2022-2025

Hopscotch provides support to women experiencing gender and racial inequality through a women’s centre and homecare service in London. In 2021, they applied to co-design a human rights resource for their staff to skill them up to use human rights to support women they help.

In 2022, Hopscotch’s Programme Manager, Fairuz, joined BIHR’s RITES Committee which brings together experts by experience who have used the HRA to achieve change. Through this work Fairuz has fed direct experience into our policy work. Watch the RITES Committee video on cost of living and domestic abuse.

Fairuz participates at many BIHR events, sharing the power of the HRA in Hopscotch’s work. Having fed into BIHR’s evidence to the United Nations review of the UK’s human rights compliance, we applied to give direct testimony in Geneva, and invited Fairuz to share the platform with another RITES Committee member to be heard at the UN.

With Fairuz’s involvement, BIHR’s recommendations about public human rights education and the need for duty-bearers in everyday public services to be fully trained on the Human Rights Act, were reflected in the UN’s report to the UK government. Find our more about Fairuz and Kirsten being heard the UN.

We are now using the recommendations from the UN to engage with the UK government about their approach to the Human Rights Act and the need for positive proactive action.

Pembrokeshire People First (PPF) is a self-advocacy group run by and for people with a learning disability and/or autism. In 2021, they were invited to the launch of some Easy Read postcards co-created by Warrington Speak Up and BIHR.

Later that year, the UK government published a consultation about repealing the HRA. With support from BIHR, PPF instructed a solicitor to write to the Justice Secretary because their consultation did not support people with a learning disability to take part.

As a result, the UK government made changes to their national consultation process. They published an accessible version of the consultation and extended the deadline for a further six weeks, enabling disabled people (and others) to take part and be heard.

"The work we’ve done has enabled us, as far away from power as we are, to feel empowered and that our voices are being heard on a national as well as local level, feeling part of a community mobilisation." Watch Lucy and Sian from PPF talk about this work here.

The Bill to scrap the Human Rights Act was abandoned, with disabled people’s real life examples of the importance of the HRA being quoted by parliamentary committees, MPs and Peers.

Warrington Speak Up and My Life My Choice are self-advocacy groups that co-designed support solutions with BIHR in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Both groups spoke about the human rights issues faced by people with a learning disability.

A key shared issue, consistently flagged by disabled people’s groups in our community work has been Do Not Resuscitate Notices being put on the medical files of disabled people without consultation. This would mean if they needed life saving resuscitation it would not be provided.  This risks many human rights under the HRA.

In 2023 Health Ombudsman commissioned BIHR to carry out lived experience research on DNR Notices. We shared power with our learning disability community partners, ensuring both the content and format was led by them. We produced Easy Read and video formats as well as a traditional long form report.

The Ombudsman adopted the recommendations people with learning disabilities put forward calling for better information, processes and safeguards. As Rebecca, from Warrington Speak Up captures: “We should always be involved and heard in decisions about our lives.”

This has been a platform to taking the work forward with the new government’s Care Minister, ensuring that the risks to people’s human rights are addressed at the national level.

In 2022, Each Other reported on a series of human rights postcards developed with Warrington Speak Up, by and for people with a learning disability.

Click here to visit the news piece.

In 2023, BIHR was delighted to be nominated for the Best Supporter at the National Advocacy Awards by three of our partner CVGs on this programme, which we went on to win. The award “focuses on people who do not directly deliver advocacy but who contribute to and improve standards within the sector”.

Click here to read our blog about the awards.

In 2024, the Association for Young People’s Health shared a blog about their awareness-raising workshop with their Young Ambassadors.

Click here to visit their website to read about their human rights workshop.

In 2025, Cwm Taf People First shared their work learning about human rights, including their work with BIHR to co-create a human rights card game for people with a learning disability.

Click here to watch their video.