Telling the history of self-advocacy: a challenge for inclusive research

This paper tells the story of Central England People First's (CEPF) History Project.

This was an inclusive research project, owned and controlled by members of CEPF which sought to chart its 21-year history, 1990-2012.

It illustrates both the strengths of such a project and some of the challenges.

It concludes that using inclusive research methods enabled the story to be told, but that it was less successful in addressing questions about why the organization grew and prospered in the 1990s, only to struggle in its later years, and what this tells us about the conditions which enable self-advocacy to flourish. The paper was collaboratively written by the CEPF History Project team and an academic ally. Different fonts differentiate the contributions, although it is acknowledged that lots of the ideas were shared. This paper explores issues in telling the history of self advocacy using inclusive research methods. It explains how and why CEPF recorded its history, what we found out, and some of the questions we have had to think about: whose voices we hear what to include, what to leave out what parts of the research people with learning difficulties can do what self advocacy means to different people how to make use of research other people have done. It raises some new questions about directions for inclusive research. The Paper was written by the CEPF History team - Craig Hart, Ian Davies, Angela Still and Catherine O'Byrne - working with Jan Walmsley. We wanted to make it clear what were Jan Walmsley's ideas and what were our ideas. We have done this by writing our ideas in a different font. BUT lots of the ideas belong to all of us.