Heartbreak and Learning Curve Group:
This is genuinely heartbreaking. 💔
Recently, I needed to access a domestic abuse awareness video case study I created after completing a course with Learning Curve Group.
The video was used to raise awareness, support survivors, and encourage education around domestic abuse.
Today I discovered it has been removed.
No notification. No conversation. No explanation. No opportunity to save a copy.
This has a detrimental impact on my blogging and sharing of the video, as people can no longer access or benefit from the content.
As a disabled advocate, this is becoming a painfully familiar experience.
I find organisations to support. I give my time at cost. I arrange transport despite my disabilities. I push through pain, fatigue, accessibility barriers, anxiety, and health conditions because I genuinely believe in making a difference.
I show up.
I do the work.
I advocate.
I amplify their messages.
Then, without warning, the work disappears.
It feels eerily similar to what happened with DurhamEnable. Months or years of effort, awareness raising, content creation, lived experience, and advocacy simply erased without consultation or consideration for the person who invested their time and energy into it.
What many people fail to understand is that advocacy isn't just posting on social media.
For disabled people, every commitment often comes with a physical cost. Every event, every video, every interview, every awareness campaign requires energy we may not have, recovery time we may not get back, and sacrifices others never see.
When that work is removed, it isn't just content that disappears.
It's the hours spent creating it. The emotional investment. The lived experience shared. The barriers overcome to make it happen.
It is exhausting constantly giving so much of myself to organisations and causes, only to feel disposable when the work is no longer convenient or visible.
I'm tired of being expected to volunteer my expertise, my story, my platform, and my advocacy, while simultaneously watching the value of that work be overlooked.
So moving forward, I need to place value on my own time.
I will no longer be producing promotional videos, awareness content, or advocacy work for organisations without appropriate recognition, agreements, or payment for my time and labour.
The reality is that advocacy has value. Content creation has value. Lived experience has value. If organisations choose to remove or discontinue materials that advocates have invested significant time and energy into creating, there should at least be communication, transparency, and respect for the contribution made.
Advocacy matters.
Disabled advocates matter.
Our time matters.
And our contributions should not be treated as disposable.
Today feels soul-crushing, but it is also a reminder that I deserve to be valued too.
Sarah Wingfield ❤️
KawaiiDollDecora.uk
Actor • Author • Advocate
#DisabilityAdvocacy #DisabledVoices #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #LearningCurveGroup #DisabilityAwareness #AccessibilityMatters #DisabledAdvocate #ChronicIllnessWarrior #InvisibleDisability #AdvocacyMatters #DomesticAbuseAwareness #LivedExperience #InclusionMatters #EqualityForDisabledPeople #ValueDisabledPeople #SupportAdvocates #CommunityImpact #DisabledCreators #DisabilityRights #AccessibilityForAll #SarahWingfield
Alt Text:
A disability advocacy graphic featuring Sarah Wingfield sitting outside the Learning Curve Group headquarters on a bright sunny day. Sarah is wearing pink cat-ear headphones, glasses, colourful jewellery, and a white flamingo-print top, with a red Hello Kitty backpack beside her. The Learning Curve Group building is clearly visible in the background and highlighted with a red circle and warning symbol. Large text reads "Disability Advocacy Is Real Work." Alongside disability-themed icons, the graphic states: "We show up. We speak up. We create change. We don't do it for recognition. We do it because lives depend on it." A banner across the bottom reads: "Value our time. Respect our work. Support disability advocates." The image promotes recognition of the time, energy, and lived experience disabled advocates contribute to awareness and social change. ❤️♿
