Sound Therapy

Before we became Decoda we were Count Me In, taking musicians into local day centres and homes. Count Me In was born one evening in a pub in Hastings. Everyone in the pub was watching Rag Mama Rag, the acoustic blues duo but I was watching Dave,(not his real name) at a table next to […]

May 8th 2007:Did anyone else see the recent report that the Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis has admitted that the government is losing the battle to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities?
He has told the Association of Directors Adults Social Services spring seminar that because of the struggle with achieving the Valuing People […]

According to an article in today’s Irish Medical Times, wanting to walk is one of the most common challenging behaviours. Doctors were discussing the treatment of elderly patients in hospitals in Ireland and Dr. Cillian Twomey, consultant physician in Geriatric Medicine, Cork University Hospital, gave the example of a man with dementia who liked to […]

Is it any coincidence that very helpful organisations have been set up by parents of children with disabilities, seeking to plug the gap they’ve experienced in the help that’s available. The Henry Spink Foundation is one (see the last post) and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation is another.

I just happened to hear Henrietta Spink talking to John Humphrys in On The Ropes on Radio 4. Listening to her story I was amazed that I’d never heard of her before. She’s the mother of two severely, but differently, disabled sons now in their late teens who has battled for the rights of carers. […]

For a long time we’ve wanted to enable others to use our methods to engage people with profound disabilities in meaningful activities. Now we can do that, through our offshoot organisation - Responsive Environments Ltd.

We all agree and know that we really do want the very best in terms of quality of life for people with learning disabilities and especially those with complex needs. Decoda grew out of my experiences in a local home and day centre and the firm belief that there had to be an alternative to […]

Turning out the filing cabinet today I found a pile of blank self-evaluation forms from our days of running courses funded by the Learning and Skills Council. They were always a mystery to us as the people we worked with didn’t speak and certainly couldn’t read or write. So how were they supposed to fill […]

Decoda’s a social enterprise. The problem is that the vast majority of people still say A what when told that. I’m curious as to why that is. It’s such a wonderful concept, bringing together the best of the charity and business worlds. The idea behind it is that you operate as a business but with […]