In preparation for our campaign this week, ‘I Open My Own Front Door, Do You?’ I asked friends, colleagues, and family to share what ‘front door’ as a concept means to them. The majority of this blog is what people told me - beautiful, heartfelt, thoughtful quotes.

This week, I can chat with Sam Clark, Chief Executive of ⁠Learning Disability England⁠. We talk about the importance of people opening their own front doors as we share a new campaign - I Open My Own Front Door, Do You? - by Gloriously Ordinary Lives in partnership with Learning Disability England.

This week, I share a new campaign - I Open My Own Front Door, Do You? - by Gloriously Ordinary Lives in partnership with Learning Disability England.

This week I explore the idea of independence - how we use it in social care, and whether sometimes, it’s just about someone needing their shoes put on so they can get to the pub?

If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know I’m a bit obsessed with all things ‘language’. Fast forward to today - Bryony Shannon and I are thrilled to launch Gloriously Ordinary Language.

This week, I explore what happens when dreams and aspirations, the things we want to do in our gloriously ordinary lives, are turned into outcomes by Serviceland.

This week I chat with James Townsend, Co-Founder and CEO of ⁠Mobilise⁠. We reflect on the importance of shifting how local councils view families, focusing on supporting them to live gloriously ordinary lives. It's about having early conversations, rethinking relationships between people with a caring role and those they support, and opening up new ways of understanding those connections.

Having always wanted to protect my kids’ identity by talking about them as The Boy and The Girl, The Boy is ready to let it be known who he is. There’s a great reason for this, which I share in this blog.

I am pleased to introduce Ciaran Cameron.

This week I reflect on how we truly support people to live their own Gloriously Ordinary Lives — even when it doesn't match our idea of 'gloriously ordinary'.

In episode 9, I chat with Kate Mercer from ⁠Black Belt Advocacy⁠.

On the podcast we talk about how advocacy is being alongside somebody - it's not just a job role. People have different wants and needs, and Gloriously Ordinary Lives is about unlocking what's important to a person. We reflect on the role of advocacy in creating Gloriously Ordinary Lives, and introduce our new training programme,⁠ 'Advocating with and for Gloriously Ordinary Lives'⁠.

Quick one this week. Consider it a public service announcement (and in no way a rant, not at all).

Gloriously Ordinary Lives is in danger of becoming GOL.

This week, I reflect on the power of words - how we write about ourselves, and what we say and write about people. It matters because it impacts how we then think about support and how people might want to live their lives - but so often, we get this wrong. How much would you like someone to write a plan for your life and hold you to it, making out that you had written it yourself?

I’m getting increasingly clear that the essence of Gloriously Ordinary Lives is paying attention to the mundane and the heart sing - and after a recent conversation, I’ve realised… that heart ZING plays an important role, too!

In episode 8 of the Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast, I chat with the wonderful ⁠Mary Gardner.

Mary and I discuss how Direct Payments and personal assistants are a key route to Gloriously Ordinary Lives. We share 5 top tips for Local Authorities on making Direct Payments and personal assistants work effectively.

This week’s post is a quick one as I wrap up my time in Kefalonia. I’ve been working with Beyond Limits recently and together, we’ve spent time exploring Test Three (the photo test). Steve’s reminder that "it’s all in the eyes" stuck with me—true joy can’t be faked. Curiosity is key when looking at a photo; sometimes what you don’t see tells the real story.

This week, I’m writing from sunny Kefalonia, my first break since both of my children moved into their own homes. I’m reflecting on the incredible journey my son’s social worker, James, helped us navigate as my son moved into his own place. By truly listening to what we wanted and asking the right questions, James turned The Boy's hopes into a cost-effective reality.

Over the past month I have been sharing Gloriously Ordinary Lives with different groups of social workers... and I’ve got a niggle: the 'yes buts'. So this week, I come back again to my ‘What would it take?’ question.

I’m talking all about what it takes to get great support that creates Gloriously Ordinary Lives …and what gets in the way. This week, a video felt like the best way to share a little about my mum's story when she needed support from social care.

Bryony Shannon and I have been thinking about the word ‘obviously’ and how we use it in social care. This week, I reflect on the need for us to notice and question ourselves whenever we start a sentence with ‘obviously’. What might seem obvious to us may not be obvious at all to others.

Reflecting on the label of ‘carer', and how it oversimplifies the complexity of human relationships, especially when loved ones rely on social care. Relationships are far more nuanced, involving give and take, joy and pain. How can our social care system better support these connections without reducing them to carer and cared for?