Disable the Label’s Mission
Disable the Label’s mission is to empower and support parents of disabled children to help them navigate through the various stages of their disabled child's life.
Why are we doing this?
Parenting a disabled child is a minefield to navigate with minimal support and guidance available, so we are endeavouring to change this issue for all parents. Parents need to be empowered and supported to enable them to gain information that will guide them through the various stages of their child’s life. Change is needed because these parents are thrust into this alien world of disability, which can be an emotional rollercoaster of acceptance of their child’s disability, alongside trying to find what is or isn’t available to give their child the best support and the future they deserve. It is a steep learning curve which currently involves huge amounts of time and effort researching what is or isn’t available, taking them away from valuable time to spend with their child. Also there are the extra costs parents incur just to provide extra equipment, additional therapies, transportation etc and that is before they even consider potential holidays as a family. Knowing what is right or wrong for a disabled child can be an extremely daunting, confusing and emotionally draining experience for a parent.
Our Solution
We believe that Disable the Label can change this experience by creating an easily accessible and thoughtfully curated resource that empowers and supports parents as they navigate their disabled child’s life. We want to create one app containing as much information as possible, linking to all different aspects of their disabled child's life. It will contain a directory listing information on equipment, holidays, sports, therapy and much more. Disable the Label will provide parents with a useful and affordable resource that does not burden them with unnecessary expenses. The app will also feature free podcasts and guidance to help parents get started with specific subjects. There will be a members section that, for a small fee, parents can access giving them even more in-depth help and advice, including webinars and Q&A's with disability professionals. Members will also have access to guides on various subjects that are key in their disabled child's life. In the future we hope to introduce a marketplace where parents can sell/swap their used disability equipment as their child grows and progresses.
We, Disable the Label, wanted to create this platform for parents by parents and by having parents on our board of trustees, we are ensuring we consult them on any decisions about information being shared and future podcast discussions.
How will it work?
The app will have 3 different sections, the first two being free and accessible by anyone. These sections include a directory, this directory will have 8 different main categories; Sports, Activities, Holidays, Funding, Therapy, Equipment, Clothing and Support. Within these categories we will be approaching businesses, charities and organisations that provide services and products, these could be groups such as wheelchair basketball, equipment such as specialised bicycles, Therapy centres and holidays that are appropriate and disabled friendly for the family. The list is endless, we have started to produce the BETA version of our app and can show you a little of how the directory will look like.
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As you can see above, you can search within the directory, save favourites that you want to come back to grab the information needed and even see featured businesses in the area you are searching.
Why are we crowdfunding?
We are a social enterprise and therefore a Not for Profit organisation, so we rely on the donations of others to be able to get the project fully up and running.The funding we raise will initially be spent on taking the app from its BETA version and building the full app. We will have a team of volunteers that will be working in the background creating the content for the app by collating all the businesses, charities and organisations across the UK that want to be on the directory but we will require some salaried employees to oversee, so any excess funding will go towards these salaries. We believe that an app provides an easily accessible, user-friendly platform for parents to use on their smartphones at any time or place. In the future any extra funding will also be used to contract professionals to improve the creation of the app itself, alongside gathering the content and information for guides that will be accessible within the app to ensure that the information we are providing to parents is up-to-date and relevant.