Celebrations for equal access organisation

The Turning Tides Project is celebrating 10 years of working with people in mid-Devon.

It aims to make equal access a reality for people living with learning disabilities and autism.

Director Jane Williams said: "We exist with a social cause. What's most important to us is that we have a social impact – that the work we do makes a difference.

"People who are used to being excluded, don't automatically feel included. It's incredibly important to extend an invitation that makes it clear to people that not only are they welcome, but that the people you are inviting are them."

Turning Tides believes disability is the result of society's limitations.

Dominic Palfreman, one of the Turning Tides managers, said: "We believe that people aren't inherently disabled.

"It's an environment that disables people. So it's not owned by an individual – it's owned by society.

"In an open and inclusive environment, people who want to achieve things can achieve things."

Based in the tearooms at Crediton station, but reaching people within a 30-mile (48.2km) radius, the project specialises in music and arts.

In more recent years, the project has developed to secure gardening, maintenance, and catering work serving the town and wider community.

Supported employment opportunities enable disabled people to work with and for this Community Interest Company, which has contracts with the town and beyond.

Turning Tides director Jane Williams said: "Our projects are about things the community needs to happen.

"We very rarely now go looking for those. They come to us.

"People expect that we are an organisation that has the answers, and that will provide a solution."

The Turning Tides Project believes everyone has the right to equal access to music, the arts and life.

"We create open environments by presenting information differently," Abi Innocent, one of the managers, said.

"We try to take a multi-sensory approach.

"We have pictures, words, film. We have Makaton. And then if you're presenting information in multiple ways, more people are going to be able to access that."

Music defines this project with its band writing its own songs for performances that "aim to reframe attitudes to learning disabilities and autism".

The project also records a weekly podcast, considering issues and exploring the experiences of those involved.

For Jane, that's also about ensuring that opinions are formed and heard, so real life choices can be made.

"People with 'learning disability' or 'autism' labels seem to the world to be people who don't have opinions.

"They're not people who don't have opinions. They're people the world hasn't created equal access to the right to get the information in the first place."

Over the past 10 years, Turning Tides has offered access evaluations to local companies and also reflected on the change it has made within the community.

"The reality is you don't always know the difference you make," said Jane.

"We are well known in our community. Do I think that has changed attitudes to disabled people? Yes, I think it has."

To mark the Turning Tides Project's 10 years, BBC Radio Devon has helped to record its songs, and broadcast a 10-part series about its work.

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