Welcome to the Salford Disability Forum Website

For those of you who do not know the Salford Disability Forum

We are a major force in the lives of hundreds of disabled people across the city. We do not work on behalf of disabled people, we are disabled people.

Our members are from all communities including people with learning difficulties, sensory or physical conditions and people who are disabled due to long term conditions. Our group meets on a monthly basis in venues across the city to discuss issues relating to disability.

What do we do?

Our mission is to ensure that disabled people in Salford are able to play a full and active part in the life of their community, able to take control of their lives and have an influence on others.

One of our aims is to enable disabled people to participate in forum activities and to influence local service development and planning issues. As part of this, we will be supplying disabled older people who cannot leave their homes with equipment that will allow them to participate in video discussions with others. Another strand will bring in young disabled people and disabled people in black and ethnic minority communities.

Open Forums Encourage Networking

We already hold four open forums a year, and we now plan to hold another three a year for older, younger and BME groups, specifically to discuss issues important to them. We will be inviting people from other interested organisations, so the forums can be networking meetings which will improve disabled people’s opportunities to influence decision-making processes.

Our Aims

  1. To enable people with disabilities to gain independence
  2. To increase their knowledge of services and choices available
  3. To reduce isolation of people with disabilities
  4. To enable people with disabilities to have a voice locally, regionally and nationally
  5. To raise awareness about the barriers to inclusion that disabled people face – especially with regard to employment, education, health, housing and transport

Our Objectives

  1. To provide advocacy and information
  2. To support volunteering opportunities
  3. To set up initiatives to lessen the isolation of people with disabilities
  4. To work with other organisations to form strategic partnerships
  5. To train ourselves and others about disability issues
  6. To make sure that all public information is accessible and available in a variety of formats
  7. To promote the right of disabled people to be involved in decision-making about their lives and about what goes on in Salford
  8. To provide a Youth Forum to the young disabled people of Salford aged 16-25 years