Disabled people face being cut off from society, warns Sense
Many disabled people face being cut off from society and having to overcome major barriers to make and sustain friendships, a new report from national disability charity Sense warns today (9 March).
Research commissioned by Sense shows that nearly 1 in 4 disabled people (23 per cent) feel lonely on a typical day, rising to well over a third (38%) for young disabled people aged 18 to 34. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of young disabled adults also feel they face greater barriers than non-disabled people in making and sustaining friendships.
Almost one in four (23 per cent) disabled adults also said that the Government’s recent changes to welfare benefits and eligibility for social care have made it harder for them to make and sustain friendships.
Sense, which supports and campaigns for people who are deafblind, is today launching a new campaign “We all need friends” to highlight how opportunities for friendship remain elusive for too many disabled people. It will also explore the obstacles such as a shortage of appropriate services, transport, a lack of social groups and communication barriers and aims to open up a debate about what can be done to overcome them.
Other findings reveal:
- Six per cent of respondents said they had no friends at all.
- 29 per cent of respondents reported seeing their friends just once a month or less.
- More than four out of ten disabled people (41 per cent) said that being able to get out and about more would enable them to see friends more often.
- One in five (22 per cent) said more accessible transport would help them to meet up with friends more.
Hayley Reed, who lives in Rossendale in Lancashire, has had a hearing problem since the age of 10 and lost her sight 12 years ago. She has also been a wheelchair user for 24 years. She says:
“As a younger person friendship is a really important issue for me but it’s awfully hard to make friends. I see friends once a month which helps but sometimes you might have had a bad day and just want to talk to somebody. When you’ve got a disability, it’s just not that easy. I’ve got a physical disability as well as the sight and hearing loss but the sensory impairments take over from the physical as they’re very isolating. When you’ve got all three, it puts another barrier up.”
Sense Deputy Chief Executive Richard Kramer said:
“Friendships are among the most valuable relationships we have and are important for people’s health and well-being. While there has been extensive analysis around loneliness and older people as their circle of friends reduce over time, our work shows that many disabled people have very few opportunities to make friends in the first place.
He continued:
“People with disabilities are deeply worried about the lack of opportunities and the barriers to friendship -whether it’s communication issues, a lack of transport or social groups to join. So far, there has been little analysis of the subject of friendship, particularly for young people and adults with disabilities. We want to start a national debate looking at the obstacles and what can be done to overcome them. Disabled people need to be visible, be allowed to play a full part in society and be given the same opportunities to make friends as everyone else.”
Sense is calling for a range of solutions to help improve the opportunities for disabled people to make friends including:
- Local authorities should commission more services that support the establishment and maintenance of friendships for people with disabilities. Traditional befriending services have been developed to tackle isolation and loneliness facing older people. Sense is calling for the development of ‘buddying schemes’ for individuals and social prescribing schemes for groups.
- Providing increased opportunities to meet with other people – both disabled and non-disabled - with similar interests.
- Providers that are commissioned to support people with complex disabilities living in supported accommodation and care homes should be expected to demonstrate how they support people to maximise their opportunities for friendship and to be a visible part of their local community.
- Public education to help inform the general public about disability and the challenges faced by disabled people.
- Tourist venues, such as entertainment venues should provide better access for disabled visitors.
Sense commissioned Opinium Research to carry out a survey of 1,004 disabled UK adults aged 18 and over from 30 December to 7 January 2015.
The Office of Disability Issues estimate that there are 11.6 million disabled people in the UK. Of this group 5.7 million are adults of working age, 5.1 million are over state pension age and 0.8 million are children. There are 1.6 million in UK with a communication impairment. This figure includes those who are deafblind or have a dual sensory impairment.
Sense is a national charity that has supported and campaigned for children and adults who are deafblind for over 50 years. There are currently around 250,000 deafblind people in the UK. They provides specialist information, advice and services to deafblind people, their families, carers and the professionals who work with them.
Sense promote their events on our website, like the upcoming football sessions in London (14 March).
