Supporting Change Through Human Rights for Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability

The capacity-building programme was entitled: Supporting Change Through Human Rights for Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability. This was targeted at leaders and practitioners working at the heart of admission avoidance and effective discharge, from a range of services and professional disciplines.

Through a series of 2-part online capacity-building workshops, we reached practitioners from over 30 different health and care organisations that support autistic people and people with a learning disability across the Midlands. These workshops introduced the HRA legal framework including key rights, aiming to build clarity and confidence to apply human rights law in practice decisions. Participants could then take part in further training through a practice leadership course, which delved into complex issues including restrictive practice and positive risk taking.

The human rights capacity-building programme was successful in enhancing participants’ knowledge of the Human Rights Act (HRA) along with their confidence to apply this law to their work across both parts of the programme. Most participants reported feeling more likely to take action to uphold human rights in their work, with many already having done so after just one workshop.

On the practice leadership courses, one person told us how they had already used human rights to challenge a longstanding ward policy which put a blanket ban on razors, as this was negatively impacting on someone they were supporting. Another shared how they had spoken up against a decision they found overly restrictive relating to a person’s leave from hospital detention, securing a different outcome.

Participant feedback revealed:

• Before attending the 2-part workshops, 32% of attendees said they hadn’t formally learned about the Human Rights Act before.
• After the 2-part workshops, 93% of attendees said they were more likely to rely on the HRA to make positive changes in their work, committing to actions to share information with their teams, refer to the HRA in supervision, and advocate for young people to ensure their views are being considered.
• 100% of participants on the practice leadership courses said they would recommend a BIHR programme to a colleague.

“I think this is the first time in my career I've ever focused exclusively on HR. The training has helped me to understand why we (Local Authority) do so much of what we do.” - 2-part workshop participant, Midlands Human Rights Programme 2025

“The workshops have been informative and have helped me ingrain human rights into my practice as well as confidence to challenge decisions about people human rights where I feel they have been breached.” - Practice leadership course participant, Midlands Human Rights Programme, 2025

"We were delighted to be able to work in partnership with NHSE Midlands and BIHR to offer this important programme to health and social care colleagues across the Midlands. The feedback participants gave demonstrated their appreciation of the opportunity to reflect on this critical piece of legislation, which should underpin the operational and commissioning practice of colleagues working in Adult Social Care. It was also beneficial to deliver this to mixed groups of professionals working across health and social care systems; such shared learning opportunities can contribute to multi-disciplinary understanding and working, which can only be to the benefit of people with a learning disability and autistic people." - Catherine Nolan, West Midlands ADASS

BIHR has been delighted to work alongside West Midlands ADASS and NHSE Midlands, as well as all the practitioners who took part. We hope that this training will contribute towards improved admission avoidance and effective discharge practices, enabling autistic people and people with a learning disability to live good lives across the region.