At the start of the year, we transformed our Young Artists Development Programme (YADP) into a zine. Zines are small booklets like magazines, which have been used by lots of different communities to communicate ideas artistically. Our zine, called The Department for Wonder and Play, brought together the brilliant work of 18 young disabled creatives working in lots of different ways.…

Yesterday being Saturday, Fat Sister was looking after Sausage and Bean (my nephew and niece) without King Russell, while he took care of some chores. I hadn’t been able to find a support worker who could do my care so my sister, as she often does, generously covered the gap.…

The sun brought a gentle warmth to my face as I weighed up my next move.

To my right, Scarbrough’s cliffs rolling up towards the sky, echoes of grandeur sprinkled over Victorian hotels.

To my left, the rhythmic rumble of the sea and a satisfyingly simple horizon.…

The current Government won the election and took office on the 5th July. On the same day, the new Health Secretary declared the NHS to be ‘broken’. He said it faced the biggest crisis in its history and could not be fixed overnight.…

This spring we launched Rebel Play, a creative research project to collect the positive play memories of disabled children and adults and use them to inspire new accessible activities and experiences.

Since April we’ve interviewed over 20 disabled people – the youngest contributor so far is 3 and the oldest is 75.…

In early 2021, we launched our Practical Intervention Fund (PIF). The idea behind it was to provide a straightforward way for disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to request small, practical items related to wellbeing or relaxation. This was especially important during the height of the pandemic, when accessing these kinds of items was particularly difficult for many disabled people.…

Tourettes is a surreal condition to live with – anything can become a tic, including stuff I’m not even conscious of knowing. For example, I had no idea that Keith Duffy is allergic to peanuts or what a marmoset is until my tics started talking about them.…

In April 2023 Touretteshero became an Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation (NPO). This means we get funding for the next few years to support our creative activities. It also means we’re able to grow our team, making loads of exciting projects possible.…

At several key moments in my life, Occupational Therapists (OTs) have suggested tools or approaches that have transformed what I’ve considered possible. Occupational Therapy has a lot to offer those of us with tics and Tourettes, but this is often underappreciated and underutilised, so I sat down with Ione Georgakis, an Occupational Therapist with Tourettes, to talk all things OT.…

A few years ago an article was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) about the relationship between social media and increased instances of tics. I had significant concerns about the article which I wrote about here. I ended that post by saying:

“I understand the impulse for clinicians to theorise and share ideas with others, but I’d also ask that this be done with care… Clinicians’ opinions often hold a lot of weight so I ask them to be aware of this and be thoughtful about how their views might impact people’s lives.”…