Supporting disabled-led thinking has been an important part of Touretteshero from the beginning, and over the last few years our research programmes have grown under the care of our Director of Research, Dr Will Renel. This got an added boost last year when Dr Chloe Trainor joined the team to coordinate our Knowledge for Change project.…

Often when I write these posts I’m doing it with a wide audience in mind, but this one is slightly different. While everyone’s welcome to read it, it’s particularly aimed at funding bodies, grant administrators and leaders across the arts and cultural sector, and it’s an urgent message.…

We’re a month away from Valentine’s Day, and if like Touretteshero, you and your family love inclusive, disabled-led, creative play, our event Return of the Rebels on Saturday 14th February is for you.

We’ve teamed up with the Whitechapel Gallery for Return of the Rebels, the second free, Rebel Play event that uses the positive play experiences of disabled children and adults as a creative springboard.…

For anyone old enough to remember, in 2011 Rihanna found love in a hopeless place. That place, if the video is anything to go by, turned out to be County Down in Northern Ireland. The song, with its catchy chorus, went to number one and spent an astonishing 63 weeks in the UK charts.…

Last year we launched the Touretteshero Welcome Pack, a set of artist designed letters that we provide free to children who are newly diagnosed with tics or Tourettes, and their families. The welcome pack includes letters to the child, to their parent/carers, and a version for them to give to their teachers and friends.…

If living with Tourettes has taught me one thing it’s that brains are incredibly complex and that medical understandings of neurological conditions and the reality of living with them can often feel quite different from each other. For the rest of this post, I’m delighted to hand over to Touretteshero Senior Producer, Nisha for a post about Epilepsy, shifting perspectives and organists.…

It’s been four years since we launched our Practical Intervention Fund (PIF). The fund enables disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to experiment with different items which can support their wellbeing, without having to worry about the cost.

Last year, the format of the PIF changed so that we could continue providing items but in a more manageable and environmentally sustainable way.…

A couple of weeks ago some colleagues and I gathered round a phone in the Touretteshero office to speak to my newly allocated caseworker from the Department for Work and Pensions about my Access to Work application for the year. My support usually runs from April one year to April the next, but this year, two weeks after it was due to renew, I got the news that my award was to be cut by 61%.…

Content Notice: References to genocide and Euthanasia

In 2016 much to my surprise and delight I became a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. This Fellowship from an internationally recognised health research foundation allowed me to create new work and start new conversations about the intersections between disability culture, ethics and research.…

Shortly before my emergency pacemaker operation at the end of March, I had a meeting with a couple of my colleagues to talk about what should happen to our company if I didn’t survive the procedure. This conversation was a lot to take on at that time, specially as it came so soon after Liz’s death, but it felt necessary, and the result was a set of principles that I hoped would ensure that the spirit of what we’d created remained healthy and strong if I didn’t make it.…