It's important as twice myself and my fiancé have had to scrip and scrap to have enough money just to get to and from the ATOS assessment centre in Hartlepool when I claimed ESA and we have to do the same again for my PIP assessment this Thursday as I cannot walk to the assessment centre as it's too far away from where me n my fiancé live and also because I have mobility problems with my left leg.

This petition is important as it will widely help disabled people live their life independently and efficiently. 18,000 people with high support needs relied on the fund and said it "transformed their life". The fund has recently been closed resulting in changing peoples lives greatly in a negative way. This petition may contribute towards re-opening the independent living fund even if it is a small difference. Please take a couple of minutes out of your time to sign up for this campaign. It will be greatly appreciated :)

This is important to me as my first daughter was born IUGR and we were not aware , when I became pregnant with my second daughter we were given am extra third trimester Doppler scan which detected the IUGR and Reverse chord flow, which led to a better planned pregnancy and early delivery. My Girls are in my photo Rubie was born at 32/40 @ 2lb 7oz delivered via EMCS due to IUGR and severe pre-eclampsia .. Rubie is now a happy average 5 year old at the same level as other children her age with no learning disabilities. Scarlet was born 30/40 @ 1lb 8oz due to severe early onset IUGR and reverse chord flow via EMCS only detected because of an extra Doppler scan. Scarlet is now a happy average 1 year old hitting all her milestones with no disabilities. Although both are tiny for their age.

Families of disabled children who attend After School Club, Youth Club, Holiday Play Schemes, Residential Holidays, Saturday Clubs and Overnight Breaks at West Berkshire Mencap do so out of sheer necessity. West Berkshire Mencap support the most complex and vulnerable of children who quite literally have no other respite options. These short breaks enable families to cope with day to day life and in most cases, enable them to spend quality time with their other children who are often overlooked due to the time. Parents must invest to meet the care requirements and demands of their disabled child. Parents also use these services to enable them to access social activities, maintain friendships and relationships, access further training or to have down time to recuperate so they can continue to care for their child at home.

Tower House is not just a day centre for us. This is where we've all grown very close friendships with each other and this will break up our friendship and harm our mental well being. There are no other services in the area like this for service users with so many complex needs. Some of us don't see any one in the week, so without our centre we would be totally isolated. Some of us are wheelchair bound and are being looked after by our partners or family. So coming to Tower House is a respite for our loved ones and a chance for us to be in a social environment. Some of us elderly, disabled from birth or disabled due to illness or injury. Please save our centre as this is a lifeline for us and we have nowhere else to go.

This is such an important service, providing respite and a safe and controlled environment for our young disabled children. Especially so for children with severe autism. These children do not have friends to hang out with, they don't have hobbies or clubs they can go to. Many of these children cannot go to the cinema or bowling, it is too distressing for them. The outreach team provide the most wonderful, caring staff to take these children out. They become their 'friends' their lifeline to anything outside of home and school life. The staff learn the needs of these children and cater to them. They take them out. Sometimes it may just be for a drive. My severely autistic son Merlin loves to look at tall buildings and structures. He loves to go for a drive to look at tall things at night. This makes him so happy. I don't drive. He loves to go to the outreach flat and cook. He loves to make play dough. He loves to watch old videos of old kids programmes. The outreach flat provides all this. He always asks me if he can go out with outreach every night. it is his home from home. His outreach workers Emma and Andrew are his 'best friends' They understand him completely. He has built up a relationship with them that no one else comes close too. His autism effects every aspect of his life. This service is his life without it he has nothing to look forward to. We cannot lose it.

Department for Work and Pensions minister Priti Patel claimed any examination of temporary sanctions' effects would be "misleading" in isolation and should not be investigated. This is a cop out. They know that their cuts are causing wide scale mental health problems but also know that if they are forced to face up to this they will have to admit that their policies are wrong.

Why should we pay fares to travel if going out of our area like we can travel in and around Scotland free on buses and certain coach companys but we cant travel free in the rest of the uk. one rule for one and one rule for another. please please abolish how far we can travel. think of people in wheelchairs crutches and other disabled people who cant afford to travel further afield to visit familys or seaside resorts for a holiday, or our wounded ex veterans who served there country

I am very deaf and rely on subtitling to make sense of what I am seeing. Generally speaking my complaint is aimed at recorded programmes in which subtitles are sometimes so far out of synchronicity, or simply absent for such long periods, that action on screen is over long before the words appear. Many channels appear not to use subtitling at all. I usually cannot watch them.

My partner is a double below knee amputee and is currently having to live on the settee in our two storey property while we wait to be rehoused into a level access property eg a bungalow. However due to the current housing stock being so low we cannot be rehoused until at least 2017 and even that is a big maybe. He has no access to washing facilities and this is degrading as well as unhygienic and puts him at risk of infection and illness. Due to the size of the property and the struggle to navigate a wheelchair around tiny doorways and hallways he has had to resort to using his knees to crawl or transfer from his chair which massively increases the risk of needing to have his knees amputated also which would add years to rehabilitation. We also have three young children who are seeing their father suffer every day which in turn is affecting the families well being due to the continuous daily stresses we are experiencing. I'm sure we are not the only ones in this predicament which is part of a wider issue that there needs to be a major rethink in the property allocation process to ensure those in the greatest need are adequately housed.

The pressures faced by children and teenagers now are more harsh than ever. The pressure to succeed in a failing school system, the pressure to get the best GCSE and ALEVELS, family pressures, and children who have an intrinsic mental health concern, all these pressures have increased, and the support services that would enable a child to access support have not only stayed static, but in many cases have reduced in size. Last year 800 children aged 11 and under needed treatment in a and e for injuries caused by self harm, each week there is news of another teen suicide, or an autistic child that cannot receive access to a vital service, this needs to change, and fast, before a whole generation is lost. This vital service can no longer be a Cinderella service.

Mental health in the UK is in crisis. As it's seen as an invisible problem, cuts are being made across the country in the hopes that the public won't notice or care. But most people will experience, or will have a family member or friend experience, mental health problems - this is in fact an issue that touches us all. We need to fight for our vital services. We need to fight for Winterbourne Therapeutic Community. The Winterbourne therapeutic community (TC), a large part of the Berkshire Complex Needs Service, is due to end in November 2015. The TC has been operating for almost 50 years and is highly-respected among therapists who work with TCs. This is a therapeutic model that works by bringing people together, all of whom suffer with longstanding emotional problems, and turn them into a community. Members’ experiences include abuse, neglect, trauma, deprivation and loss, particularly early in life, which leads to an inability to take care of themselves and form healthy, sustained relationships with other people. The fact that members are able to form a community is a huge testament to the hard work of both the members and the therapists. Winterbourne TC offers its members therapy of 18 hours a week for 18 months. Every member joins knowing that TC offers no quick fix, but is extremely successful when hard work and commitment is applied. In today’s world of cuts and demands for immediate results, it’s no wonder that therapeutic communities are unpopular and at risk across the UK, despite their efficacy and cost-effectiveness in the long-term (http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/…/a1CG0000000GTAxMAO). TC can only operate with full openness, which is why it’s particularly disturbing that there has been a lack of this when communicating about the future of TC. Members, both current and former, were only informed about the imminent closure of TC this month, September, meaning we’ve had very little time to organise and get a campaign plan going. Ex-members were invited to a workshop regarding ongoing psychological services provided by Berkshire Healthcare NHS trust at the beginning of September. As there was no context, and it was held from 3.30pm til 5.00pm, people who were working didn’t attend, whereas they would have made special arrangements to have attended had the workshop’s purpose been clear. The official reason for the closure of Winterbourne TC, given by Cathy Saunders, a spokeswoman for the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, is that the site has recently been deemed “unsuitable for use” (http://www.getreading.co.uk/…/patients-outrage-over-closure…), without further detail. There had been signs for some time that the TC was under threat for financial reasons: for a long period of time prospective members have been hard to find, despite the fact that previously TC was in such high demand that there was a waiting list. Additionally, this year the number of therapists in each ‘small group’ has decreased from 2 to 1. Small groups consist of up to 6 members of the community, where psychotherapy and discussion can take place in a more sustained, detailed way. Therapists are an integral part of the small groups, so this cut has been sorely felt. Winterbourne TC is incredibly special. It operates through a “living-learning” experience, which includes tasks like providing a meal for all members and therapists, teaching members how to get on with the ordinary business of living. For the incredibly hard process of leaving, a leavers’ group helps members think about life after TC, professionally and in terms of their own welfare. It also provides 24/7 support – outside of community hours, members telephone each other for support. Physical support, when telephone support just isn’t enough, can also be arranged, where members of a community come together to offer support and love during what can feel like the very darkest hours of all. This community has kept people alive. It has taught many people how to live, not just exist. This petition calls for this invaluable service to be kept open - it has been a literal lifeline to so many people. A member's story - Samuel: I would wake up every day and within seconds I’d be crushed by the disappointment that I was still here. Every hour I was conscious my time would be consumed either by unhealthy coping mechanisms or fantasies of suicide. I attempted suicide multiple times before the age of 22. Had I not been referred to Winterbourne Therapeutic Community in early 2014, I likely would be dead or dying by now. I am 24 years old. In September 2015, I completed my treatment in the Therapeutic Community and barely recognise the person I was when I started. During my time there I developed confidence, self awareness and a desire to live. I learned the skills required to leave my parents’ house and live independently. I made friends and made plans for a better life and made peace with my past and my decisions and my pain.