Kelly Stuart 19/12/2025 Joe's Soapbox

As another year passes. Let us look back at 2025.

2025 has been another busy year for our members.

A new National Council was elected. They will lead the organisation for two years.

Lucy Hinksman and Kurtis Marshall were elected as our new Chair and Vice Chair.

Our members are the very bedrock of All Wales People First and yet again have played a major role in informing government policy and working to co-produce solutions for people with learning disabilities to have better access in society.

Our Member Engagement and Communications teams have worked tirelessly with our members to ensure their voices are heard in all the right places.

This year it seemed right from the off that we were campaigning and lobbying.

In March James Tyler, Sam Hall, Jessica Keeble and I joined Disabled People Against Cuts in a protest outside number Ten Downing Street in London.

The protest was about the UK’s proposals to make further cuts to Welfare benefits.

In April our board Vice Chair Sophie Hinksman and I joined other members of the ‘Bring Our People Back Home from Hospital network’ in a demonstration at Parliament Square about the inappropriate incarceration of people with learning disabilities and autism into secure hospitals.

We also marched to the Department of Social Care to hand in a letter to Baroness Merton requesting a meeting to discuss our concerns.

In May I joined Disabled People Against Cuts in a mass lobby to MP’s in Westminster. We asked them to not support proposed welfare cuts.

Our lobbying and campaigning was also supported by many Welsh and UK Government consultation responses. They fed in the voices and concerns of our members.

This year we published our very first Diversity Strategy which aims to extend self-advocacy to everyone.

This is going to take a lot of hard work over many years to get right but this year we have made a solid start.

Our BAME members have worked with the University of South Wales on a project to include more people from diverse communities in research.

Our Social Media platforms have promoted important religious festivals and events throughout the year.

We hope this will show our commitment to making everybody feel that All Wales People First is an organisation that they can belong to.

We also hope the posts will educate members and page visitors about different religions and cultures.

We have also extended the Through Our Eyes library to include more Diverse images of people with learning disabilities.

This year we also released our new MIRROR Strategy (Business Plan) for 2026 – 2029.

This was designed by member feedback across Wales. It was shaped and signed off by our National Council.

We hope the plan will help us to promote and strengthen self-advocacy as well as increase the diversity of our membership.

Board Vice Chair Sophie Hinksman and I co-chaired a task and finish group of the Learning Disability Ministerial Advisory Group on Homes not Hospitals.

This is about getting people with learning disabilities living in Wales out of secure hospitals who should not be there.

And to prevent people from being placed into them in the future.

I co-wrote a report on behalf of the task and finish group with Dr Dawn Cavanagh, Professor David Abbott and Janis Griffiths of Stolen Lives.

The report makes recommendations on how we can solve this problem.

The report is called ‘From Hospitals to Homes’ and we expect it to be made public in January 2026.

Sadly, Hefin David MS passed away in August. Hefin was a wonderful advocate for people with learning disabilities and autism and was very important in getting the Homes not Hospitals campaign recognition in the Senedd. He will be a major loss to us all and his passing was in my opinion the lowest part of 2025. The ‘from Hospitals to Homes’ report has been dedicated to him.

I would also like to extend my thanks to Sioned Williams MS and Mark Isherwood MS for also being excellent supporters of Homes not Hospitals, both in and out of the Senedd. And for standing up for people with learning disabilities on many issues in Wales.

In November we launched our new Manifesto for the Senedd elections in 2026. Chair of the Cross Party Group on Disability Mark Isherwood MS was a keynote speaker.

The Manifesto along with the MIRROR Strategy will give us our steer over the next few years.

We have promoted the asks of the Manifesto in discussions between the Learning Disability Ministerial Advisory Group and the Welsh Government, who are working on a new Learning Disability Action Plan for Wales.

I would like to thank my fellow self-advocates Sophie Hinskman, Victoria Waller, Kurtis Marshall, Ruth Yarwood and Shell Williams for advocating on behalf of members at LDMAG.

And to say a big thank you to Lynne Evans who has stood down as a representative. Lynne has been a wonderful advocate.

The year ended with the official launch of the Disability Action plan by Jane Hutt MS, the Cabinet Secretary of Social Justice in December.

The plan lays out a ten year plan and was designed in co-production with Disabled People in Wales.

It is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom that I am aware of.

It lays out a positive vision for disabled people to remove the barriers that exclude them from society.

At the moment the plan does not have a lot of detail in it.

This is because there will be a new Government in May and it will be up to them to take it forward from there.

But we can make a start and work positively with Disabled People and the next Welsh Government to advocate that the plan is fully implemented.

Next year I envisage there are going to be more political challenges.

I believe that Homes not Hospitals and Welfare reforms will be our biggest pieces of campaigning and lobbying work in 2026.

We need to keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground and be ready to self-advocate for whatever issues may arise next year.

But for now let us celebrate the fact that we got through a challenging 2025 together.

Let us unwind, celebrate and have fun over the Christmas period.

I would like to thank all of our members, our board and the AWPF staff team for another excellent year of hard work.

Your dedication to the cause is formidable.

I would like to end by wishing all readers of ‘Joe’s Soapbox’ a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And to thank you all for your continued support.

Victory for self-advocacy!