Scope (charity) - History

History

It was founded as the National Spastics Society on 9 October 1951 by Ian Dawson-Shepherd, Eric Hodgson, Alex Moira and a social worker, Jean Garwood, with the aim of improving and expanding services for people with cerebral palsy.

From 1955 to 1989, the society ran the Thomas Delarue School, a specialist secondary boarding school at Tonbridge, Kent. Scope still runs schools for disabled children in Hertfordshire, West Sussex and near Cardiff as well as a Further Education College in Lancaster, which was founded in 1977.

Over time, thanks in large part to the influence of Bill Hargreaves, the first trustee with cerebral palsy, the charity’s aims extended to improving and expanding services for people with cerebral palsy and disabled people in general. Bill’s pioneering work in employment in the 1950s supported over 1,500 disabled people into their first jobs. In 1962, he set up the 62 Clubs where disabled people could choose and control their own leisure activities. Through its employment services and inclusion teams, Scope continues to support disabled people to have the same opportunities as everyone else.

In 1963 it merged with the British Council for the Welfare of Spastics to become The Spastics Society. The Spastics Society provided sheltered workshops and day centres for people with cerebral palsy (commonly referred to as spastics at the time, despite spasticity being a symptom of only one variant of cerebral palsy), who were seen as being unemployable in mainstream society. The Society also provided residential units and schools, as well as opening a chain of charity shops. The term spastic came to be viewed as a general insult (perversely, in part due to the Blue Peter programmes following the life story of Joey Deacon, during the International Year of Disabled Persons, in an attempt to show disability in a positive light) and the society changed to its current name on 26 March 1994, following a two-year consultation with disabled people and their families.

In November 1996, Scope AGM voted in favour of an individual membership scheme to give a voice to the 20,000 people that Scope and its local groups are in contact with every year - the first major UK disability charity to do so. In 1998, Scope individual members voted in elections to Executive Council and, since this time, the majority of trustees have been disabled people. However the first person with cerebral palsy to play a major managerial role was Bill Hargreaves, who had been elected to the Executive Council back in 1957.

In January 2012, Scope replaced its logo with a combination of more than 60 “visions of the future” created by disabled people, their friends and families. Scope wants to make disability better understood by the public, at a time when attitudes towards disabled people are getting worse and disabled people are struggling to get the support they need due to budget cuts.

With over 3,500 staff (more than 20% of whom are people with a disability) and an annual turnover of around £100 million, Scope continues to create independent living, education and employment opportunities for people with cerebral palsy and related impairments and to campaign for equality for all disabled people.