About Adele
Adele Hoskison-Clark is a disabled woman from Liverpool. She has a degree in Applied Social Studies and a post-graduate diploma in Disability Studies from the University of Leeds, as well as many years of experience working with both disabled and non-disabled young people in the education and community field.
Adele has personal experience of both the ‘special’ and ‘mainstream’ education systems. These experiences have fuelled her passion to work with young disabled people and support them to have choice and control in their lives. She has achieved this through both working alongside other disabled people with similar values and working directly with young disabled people to develop projects. Adele’s approach is grounded in the social model of disability and the removal of disabling barriers so that people with impairments can participate in their local communities on an equal level to others.
For three years Adele was the Young Disabled Person’s Development Officer for Aimhigher Greater Merseyside, working to ensure that schools, colleges and universities develop inclusive practices and that disabled people are adequately represented in higher education. During this time Adele devised and facilitated a project led by young disabled people to produce a series of positive image posters called Difference Matters… Include Us! These posters have been widely distributed across the country.
Adele has forged strong links with a number of disabled people’s organisations and at one time ran a volunteering and peer mentoring project. She also wrote the children’s book “Elliott’s Story – Love to Learn” for the ‘All Equal All Different” teaching resource pack for early years and Key Stage 1. This pack promotes an understanding of disability and inclusion in Early Years settings and classrooms and is published by Disability Equality in Education.
Adele has run workshops and presented at a wide variety of conferences including:
- Action on Access – Embedding Disability?
- Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities – Annual Conference
- Liverpool John Moores University – Equality and Diversity Conference
- Sefton Council – Every Child Matters Conference
- Wirral Borough Council – Inclusion Week
- Care Services Improvement Partnership – Transition and Health Conference
- Liverpool Primary Care Trust – Accessible Information Conference
- Disability LIB - Making Rights a Reality Conference
Adele is proud to be a mum and feels society needs to respect disabled people’s right to be parents. Through both personal and professional experience she recognises the barriers disabled people encounter around parenthood, such as the common assumption that disabled people are asexual, the lack of understanding within sexual health services about the needs of disabled people and the notion we cannot adequately care for our children because of our impairments. Adele is an active member of the Disabled Parents’ Network.