Over an 8-month period (November 2021–June 2022), a monthly session took place at the Doncaster College Hub. In total, there were 9 attendees, with an age range of between 16 & 19 years of age. Each participant was a student at Doncaster College.

Each attendee had different learning difficulties/disabilities including dyslexia, autism, ADHD, being a wheelchair user & requiring oxygen.

A forum was set up at the college, to help the students with their development regards to community inclusion.

Having a disability can be quite challenging, especially when trying to integrate into education and the community. Each of the attendees had to face different challenges in this area and the overall goal was to provide a forum to:

• Help build their confidence
• Help to spread awareness of disabilities and the challenges they often face
• Help to build their listening and communication skills
• Help them to build confidence giving them the ability to speak up
• Knowing who is the right person to speak to
• To recognise their strengths and skills

This would be achieved by:

• Setting up a disability forum at the college to discuss the topics, issues and challenges they have had to face
• To undertake an event at Doncaster College. (Created a film instead)
• To define solutions to support them overcome their challenges

Following a discussion between the Chief Executive of Live Inclusive and Doncaster College, it was agreed to set up a forum in partnership with the key identified attendees requiring specific support.

The group was led a facilitated by our Community Engagement Worker, Charlotte, a member of the Reach Out, Rebuild and Recover team. Charlotte has lived experience of being a disabled student and is able to facilitate and give advice based on her own experiences, as to how to overcome them.

The team was introduced to each other and a film was shown discussing the challenges of people with disabilities and their experience of their time at school and college.

A questionnaire was developed and each of the team members was asked about their experience, which was then filmed in order to raise awareness to the wider public.

A number of the team were filmed and these are now available on Live Inclusive social media and YouTube.