Meet the Mancunian - 4.11 - Talking disability confidence with Alex Winstanley

Transcript - Alex Winstanley

Intro

Welcome to the 11th episode of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester. This is season four. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your friendly host.

On the streets and nooks of Manchester, my inspiring Mancunian guests tackle their causes with grit and passion. They are leaders, worker bees, and community hosts, and they share their stories to inspire you all through the season.

Relax, grab a brew and listen in to the Meet the Mancunian podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, or any of your favourite podcasting platforms. You can also check out all the episodes and transcripts on my new website, www.meetthemancunionon.co.uk

Passionate about becoming disability confident, we hear from Alex Winstanley, Founder, Happy Smiles Training in this episode.

Episode 11

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Alex Winstanley, Founder, Happy Smiles Training. Thank you, Alex, for joining me today. Really looking forward to hearing all about the good work you're doing for the disabled.

Alex Winstanley: Thanks Deepa and thank you for having me as well. I really appreciate it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So first, tell us about how you found your passion for supporting the disabled. Where did it all start?

Alex Winstanley: So I really fell into it without meaning to. When I was 19, I think I was a trainee teacher and I always wanted to be a teacher. And I was a secondary school PE [physical education] teacher. I started to be a personal assistant for a disabled young man who's a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy and absolutely fell into doing that and just loved it from the first second. I was like, why is everyone not doing this? This isn't even a job. It was just like going out with friends who were a similar age.

So yeah, so that's how I met Hayden. And Hayden then went on to, nearly 10 years later to essentially become the inspiration behind Happy Smiles Training.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Wow. That is lovely. And I hope you're still very much in touch with Hayden. Sounds like a great bond.

Alex Winstanley: Unfortunately… no, I'm joking. I'm in touch with Hayden every single day. He is basically a part of my family; he came to my wedding and everything. He's a really close friend and a member of my family. and we're very, very close. Yeah. And we set up Happy Smiles. We've grown a lot since then and we work on it together pretty much every day.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Oh, wonderful. That's great to know that he's part of the organisation as well. So it brings us very well to Happy Smiles Training. How did you start that and what does it do?

Alex Winstanley: Well, Happy Smiles Training is a disabled persons-led organisation. We're a social enterprise that empowers disabled people to create positive change. And we do that by delivering training led by lived experience, all led by disabled people to schools, community groups, and businesses. It started, we're based in Wigan. We started delivering around Wigan, then Greater Manchester, the North West, and, and have now delivered some training nationally.

Just this year, we have been listed on the Disability Power 100 List by the Shaw Trust, which is a list of the most influential disabled people in organisations in the UK. So it's pretty epic achievement to be on the same list as some incredible people. And yeah, it is really, really exciting.

So yeah, we're really proud of that. We've delivered training to just over 10,000 people now to children, young people, and adults, across lots of different topics. But importantly, we're also passionate about creating an employment pathway for disabled people as well.

This is really amazing and congratulations on that achievement of being on the, did you say disabled power list?

Alex Winstanley: It is the Disability Power 100

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yeah, Disability Power 100. That sounds really fabulous. And how long has your organisation been in existence?

Alex Winstanley: So we set up in September 2019. I just left my teaching job a few months earlier and people told me that I shouldn't have done it, but I knew that I needed to do it to make that leap.

And I actually got married that summer too, so it was a busy year. But then, as we all know COVID hit six months later and it might not have been the best time to leave my job, but however we battled through it, we did lots of different community work delivering essential items and food to disabled people.

So on behalf of lots of members in the community, we sent out rainbow badges to over 750 NHS workers. Things like that, that we were doing to help our communities. But we continued to grow even despite the impact of Covid which was a really big challenge. Disabled people were probably forgotten about quite a lot, even more than usual at that time.

But people actually started to empathise that being locked away and isolated from society isn't a nice thing. And unfortunately, that's what a lot of disabled people face every day. And we use the term disabled people because we believe like the social model of disability, that disabled people are actually disabled by society.

Not because of their impairments- their physical, visual sensory impairments, whatever they might be. But it's actually by society because society isn't set up to support and include disabled people and celebrate disabled people. And I think we saw that during Covid quite significantly.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That is really interesting. And the fact that because people were all locked down, they could resonate finally with what, as we said, disabled people face every day. You've talked about one challenge, which is society itself and how it perceives disability. What are the other challenges you've had to face?

And, besides the pandemic, which was I guess, a mammoth challenge for everyone, and especially for a new business, I'm sure it must have been difficult. Yeah. Are there any other challenges that you've been able to surpass and that you can share with listeners?

Alex Winstanley: Challenges every day Deepa…Where do I start, it is a great question.

Just balancing everything. I think just for me personally, trying to balance, when you're so passionate about something and every waking moment, you wake up in the middle of the night and you've got ideas, you wake up in the morning, you're like, right, let's go. This is an idea, or this is what needs to happen. and then trying to find people that share those passions, which I'm really lucky. I've been able to find lots of incredible people.

Speaking in the Manchester area, the first one that comes to mind is Ben Andrews [Listeners can check out the interview with Ben Andrews earlier in this season]. So Ben is an incredible person and a good friend of mine. And you meet people like Ben and you've energised and they're doing brilliant work and they're on the same level as you and me.

That's something that I love doing is meeting people, and speaking to people like yourself. I get a real buzz from that connection. We're all trying to do good things, but the challenge is trying to really step away from that, say night-time right now, and trying to have family and all those things.

That's my biggest challenge really trying to separate myself from that passion. At times you just, it's almost impossible to do because I believe in what we do so strongly and the work that I do. So, yeah. It's like during Covid, I wanted to keep trying to impact the community and so I started writing children's books.

I never thought I would do that, ever. And, and my first book was about my grandma who had dementia. So I knew I wanted to write a children's book to explain dementia because it just isn't spoken about. And neither is disability difference, all these things. Diversity, we just don't speak about it enough.

Alex Winstanley: So it's almost like society is too scared to speak about these things. So I wanted children and young people to speak about these things with their families, and that book took off way more than expected. And it led to a whole series called the My Has Series. And more books followed from that.

The books on depression, cancer, tourettes and cerebral palsy, and they're all inspired by real people with real stories. I'm really passionate about people having their voices heard. And that book is those books, that series has just been taken on by Tiny Tree, who are a children's book publisher.

And the books have just arrived today. They're in the packaging in the room next to me, so I'm very, very excited to open that box and see them. But yeah, the books are, are just another part of, I suppose, what I do now and I'm working with different charities and organisations. I'm writing books at the same time as the My Has series that I work on.

I've just finished a book on women's football with Emerson Bose, for example, which is really exciting. At Happy Smiles, we also do a lot of book readings with those books in schools and community groups. So it all links. But trying to contain all that and trying to balance all that is a challenge.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's true. There's only 24 hours in a day and it sounds like you're doing a lot.

What impact have you made, would you say you've made so far? It sounds like you've done a lot and you've been recognised, including, like you said, stepping in during the pandemic and giving a kind of lifeline to disabled people. But what are the things you can talk about?

Alex Winstanley: Yeah, so I mean, I'm obviously really proud of what we've been able to achieve so far. As I said, delivering training to over 10,000 people from absolutely nothing. I think the biggest thing Deepa is that when I left my teaching job, I had no clue what I was doing. I had never run a business. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what a CIC was, a community interest company or a charity.

I knew what a charity was or I thought I did but I didn't actually know anything. I just knew there needed to be a change and disabled people needed to lead that change. And I'm really proud that from absolutely nothing with no experience, no contacts, no nothing, we've been able to build a sustainable business and grow that business as a social business that creates positive change.

We've upskilled 15 local disabled young adults who've delivered our work and are growing our team all the time. So like I said before, we deliver training to over 10,000 people. That's, that's massive in my opinion. And I'm really, really proud of that. But I'm really proud as well that, we don't charge disabled people to deliver our work. There's no charge for them at all. And we've created a pathway to employment. We've employed two disabled people now. Which again is something that I'm extremely, extremely proud of. And even though people try and say like, oh, maybe you should do this or do that, and take a more commercial approach. Even though it might be easier to do that sometimes, I'm very passionate about trying to stick to our guns and create change in a really different way. 

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Oh, it is a huge impact. I mean, 10,000 people with now better perceptions about how to work with disabled people, how to make them productive members of society. That sounds amazing.

And it's great that you are incorporating disabled people, both as facilitators or leaders and as well as employees into your company.

So how can interested people reach out to you and learn more, and how can they get your book for their children or for themselves?

Alex Winstanley: Yeah, so I mean you can reach out to, you can see more work that we do at Happy Smiles on our website is www.happysmilestraining.co.uk.

On there, you'll see My Has series of books - the first five. My grandma has dementia, my brother has cancer, my uncle has depression, My cousin has Tourettes and my child has cerebral palsy. They're the first five books and really excited.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So all of this is on your website. Is that the main place? And is there any social media that you want to shout out to?

Alex Winstanley: Yeah, sure, sure. I mean, people can get the books. If they go to that, the website, they can see them. They're available on Amazon worldwide. But if people get in touch with me via the website or via email at info@happysmilestraining.co.uk, we can get the books, I'll get the books to them cheaper as well than Amazon so I can get them at a reduced rate, which is always nice. But yeah, otherwise people can just get them on Amazon whenever they want which is awesome.

In terms of social media. If people want to see what we do, it’s at @HappySmilesTrainingCIC on Facebook and Instagram or @HappySmilesCIC on Twitter.

And you can also see the books and all the stuff I'm working on with the books on @AlexWintanleyauthor on Facebook and Instagram.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thanks Alex, and it's great that you've given all these links.

What advice would you have for people looking to start something similar in another part of the world or across the UK?

We've got listeners now from around 41 countries and many of them may be thinking about similar things, working with the disabled, supporting the disabled, creating more awareness and how could they start.

Alex Winstanley: Well, I think if anyone's got a passion and something they want to do, it's really easy and almost cheesy of me to say, to follow your dreams.

But I was really lucky that I was in a position where I could leave my job and I could do it. My wife and I and, and we were only like, say we weren't married when I left my job. We were shortly after and we sort of sat down and said this is now or ever. Whereas now I couldn't do that. We’ve got a house and, two children and well one on the way very soon.

And so I couldn't do that now, probably, and it depends on people's situation, but, if you do believe in, in something that you're really passionate about. Just try not to let that drop. Keep pursuing that. Keep meeting people. The more you meet people who are like-minded, the more that it'll drive you to support each other and support yourself.

And that's something that's real, that really excites me. So, it sounds cheesy to say follow your dreams. I really believe that if someone's passionate about that, they should. And I think from a disabled person's point of view as, as even as a non-disabled person myself I'm extremely passionate about disability inclusion.

And therefore anyone with a similar passion, please do get in touch. I'd love to meet you and speak to you. As I said, I'm really passionate about supporting the social model of disability and awakening people across society to realise that disabled people make up one-fifth of the global population.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. 20% of the global population is disabled people. Wow.

Alex Winstanley: But then yet they're the most ignored, essentially ignored minority group if you were gonna call it that. The biggest minority group, but yet the most forgotten about. And that's how a lot of disabled people feel when you speak to them.

When we talk about protected characteristics, race, gender, sexuality, disability, age, et cetera, disabled people often feel that they're the most forgotten about in those categories. And we talk about diversity and inclusion, but then when we started talking, reasonable adjustments and adaptations for disabled people.

Disabled people more often than not tell me. Well, the world just isn't ready for disabled people. We're not, we're not an accessible world. We're not inclusive. I do believe we're very, very, very slowly getting there. And, and being at places like the Disability Power 100 list recently, and their event and being at Scopes first Disability Equality Awards recently. Both of those events just surrounded by incredible, incredible disabled and non-disabled people all fighting for the same cause. And I think if we can all come together and have that one voice I think that will be extremely powerful. But until disabled people are in positions of power, authority, decision-making, I don't think we'll see that just yet.

But I do think we are getting there very slowly.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much for sharing that. It's eye-opening. You talked a couple of times about the society model of disability. Oh, sorry. The social model of disability. Can you explain what that is please?

Alex Winstanley: Yeah, so the social model of disability came from the disabled people's movement. That said that basically society disables disabled people. So people aren't disabled by… We talked about cerebral palsy by the fact that someone has cerebral palsy that might affect someone's part of their body in some way. That doesn't mean that they should be disabled.

But they are by society. So I'll use Hayden as an example. Hayden's a wheelchair user, and uses a power chair. And as a really obvious one, if there are steps into a building with no access via a ramp or level access, he's not going to be able to get into that building. And that's not his fault, that's society's fault for not having those adjustments in place.

And if those adjustments were in place, then Hayden would, he would still have celebral palsy. But that's fine because we can't prevent that from happening. We can't stop that right now. But what we can do is make a building accessible so that he is included in society. And more often than not, you wouldn't believe on a daily basis, just people going about their lives. They are excluded in ways that you just wouldn't believe unless you've lived it. And that's why, I'm so passionate about supporting people who are driving change led by lived experience because there's no one who has more expertise than those with lived experience of the challenges and experience that they've had.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: You're absolutely right. Anything that's from lived experience is just so much more powerful because it is probably the right perspective or the perspective that matters. But you have raised a very difficult topic about the fact that we are unintentionally, I'm sure, excluding disabled people. And it's great that you and others are kind of raising this as an important factor and hopefully helping businesses, government, and society at large to be more inclusive.

Alex Winstanley: Hopefully. Think, hopefully. I mean yeah, COP 27 right now. But look at Cop 26. Last year there was an Israeli minister who couldn't even get into the building. You might have heard of it. And, that was because that building wasn't accessible. So a disabled person wanted to go and have their voice heard and could not, and this was a leader, a disabled person with influence, and a decision maker who just happened to be a wheelchair user who couldn't access that building. And I've heard lots of feedback that the actual event itself in many ways wasn't accessible. That again, unless you have lived experience of accessibility challenges, you're probably not going to know how to make that accessible.

And that's why people who are making those decisions and holding those global events that mean, I mean, what's bigger than climate change at the moment? They need to hear from disabled people and disabled people's organisations like ours. Because unless you hear from people who've lived experience as you've just rightly said Deepa, then you don't know what you don't know.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yeah, onto more conversations, I hope. I mean, let's keep talking because I think there'll always be something we could think about. But an opportunity now for you to talk about anything that I haven't asked you about, anything coming up or anything that you're focused on, or maybe something to call out how difficult winter may be for disabled people. Because I assume it's harder than the rest of the year

Alex Winstanley: Yeah. I'm really glad you brought that up Deepa, to be honest. I mean, not just winter. Winter is definitely a key time. But look at the current challenges in society. The cost of living crisis.

A survey really recently released that, that showed that 20% of disabled people across Greater Manchester can't afford the essential items to live. Now, that's not just affording to put your heating, they can't afford essential items to live. That's 20%. That's really scary. And yeah, I think unless people aren't impacted in that way, not that they don't care.

You, said before, rightly that it's unintentional potentially, but we need to be thinking about how we support people. And I think the way we do that is by, again, putting ourselves in their shoes and we hear some of the government advice that's like, well turn off your, turn off your mains. Turn off your lights.

Well, Hayden, again, using, using my mate Hayden as an example, he can't just turn off his lift in his house. He can't turn off his profile in bed with his air mattress. He can't turn off those things. You can't turn off his power chair when he's charging. There are essential items for him to live.

Yeah. Again, unless people have haven't had lived experiences, they wouldn't understand that. And I think if people can understand what disabled people are facing, that on an average, for a disabled person in the UK, it costs over 500 pounds more per month to live than a non-disabled person. So these sorts of challenges we've got to wake up to and think about how we can support people right now because people need our support right now.

Not just in the future, but now and I mean, I can't think of a more important time with everything going on than now. So yeah, the more for me that we can support everybody, but particularly thinking about disabled people in this cost of living crisis, I know it was it would be going a long way to build in that conversation around it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else, Alex, you want to talk about before I go to my signature questions?

Alex Winstanley: No, nothing. I think other than please keep a lookout on social, on those social media platforms I mentioned before having a look at the books that are coming out under Tiny Tree now that I'm really, really excited about them being released. And yeah, you'll be able to pre-order those through Tiny Tree really, really soon. So, I'm really, really excited about that.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. And, yes, I'm sure many people will be very interested, especially if they have young children.

And it's now the time for my favourite part of the podcast, which is the signature questions I ask all my guests.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And the first one for you is to describe the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase.

Alex Winstanley: I think the word that comes to me is together. I feel like you look at things that happen to people across Greater Manchester. There's a shared sense of togetherness, especially when things turn ugly in society. You find that good people come together. So, yeah, together.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Lovely one.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why? And it can be somebody in the past or somebody who's currently around.

Alex Winstanley: Yeah. Oh, there's, there's, there's so many to choose from. And it is really really hard to pick because my brain automatically goes to sports a lot of the time. Especially, especially being from Manchester. But yeah, I think if I could, if I could think about someone, someone, I mean, I tend to, if again, if I was thinking about a sporting analogy, I grew up with the class of 92. So and they came through from Man United. And I grew up watching those, winning everything. That team, and again, going back to togetherness, I feel like there was just this group of players that came through that you just never really seen the likes of that happening again. And I think that's just really inspirational for a lot of young people to see people working together, and achieving so much success together. And hopefully, it'll happen again one day.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

Alex Winstanley: A life lesson. It's a really tough one. I know someone said to me last year, who's the most important person in your life? And I said, my daughter. And they said, well, actually it's not your daughter, it's yourself. They said, cause if you don't look after yourself, you can't look after your daughter. And that's something I'm always working on.

I'm always trying to help other people, but I think as social entrepreneurs, we're always trying to help everybody. And I think we need to learn to look after ourselves a little bit more, and that's really easy to say and really hard to do, and I am not the best person at doing that at all, but I'm hopefully learning and trying my best to get there.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a really great tip. It's like they say in a plane, right? Put on the oxygen mask on yourself before you take care of others. That's it. And it's the same… Nurture yourself, self-care. Because otherwise, you don't have the strength to do it.  To take care of others or your company or your family.

So yeah, it is a hard one but it's a great one. Thank you for sharing that.

If you could have one superpower, what would that be?

Alex Winstanley: I've been asked this question before and I always come up with different answers, probably depending on the day, to be honest.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Absolutely. Why not ?

Alex Winstanley: But yeah, it's another really tough question, I think.

Oh, if I could have one superpower, I think it would be to turn back time. I'd love to be able to know what I know and try and reverse time and try and just help people and keep trying to change the world, but for the better, and the more I can go back and help people to do that, that'd be pretty cool.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a good one. Everyone has such diverse responses to this and I really love hearing them. That's why it's my favourite bit.

My last question for you is there a funny story you'd like to share with listeners? Anything funny at work or in Manchester that may have happened? And it's purely optional.

Alex Winstanley: Oh, a funny story. I'm sure there would be. I'm sure there would be. I mean, yeah, I know that it's not as funny as a story, but Hayden loves this one, so I'm gonna tell it. When we first set up Happy Smiles, we did a duathlon to fundraise. And so we had an adaptive bike, so it was like a run, a bike, and a run. It was like a triathlon without the swim. And I sat Hayden on the front of the bike so that we could do it together, the bike part, and we'd done the run, we'd done the bike, and just towards the end, he was all strapped in on this big adapted bike. But one of the straps broke and basically, Hayden fell out and he fell out onto the floor and we were like Oh No.  I was really scary. So it was a pretty scary moment. Got him up and got him sorted. The ambulance came in. He was fine. But he just laughed. And I remember we had to get him back to his parents and we got back and one of his parents, I was thinking, what are they gonna say?

Like, they're never gonna support us. They're gonna hate this. And the first thing they said was they said, Alex, if Hayden didn't do this sort of stuff, he'd never have any experiences. So that always sticks, with me. But that was in a place in, in Altrincham. It was at Dunham Massey.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Oh, Dunham Massey. You're not far from me. I'm in Wythenshawe.

Alex Winstanley: Right. There you go. So yeah, it was in Dunham Massey. It is a lovely, lovely area and yeah, that experience always sticks with me. So not as, not a funny story, but something that always sticks.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: and I guess it's about, both of you taking it very positively. Yep. Even if you panicked a bit in the beginning. Definitely. That is, that's really great.

Alex, thank you so much for talking to me and my listeners. It was really fascinating, and I'm really impressed by everything you're doing. Keep shining.

Alex Winstanley: Thank you, Deepa. Appreciate it. And thank you for the support.

Outro

Alex, I really enjoyed learning about disability awareness. Dear listener, thank you so much for listening to the 11th episode of the Meet the Mancunian Podcast, season four. I hope this episode and the podcast itself encourages you to follow your passions. Inspired by the amazing Mancunian guests who feature here.

Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode or log on to www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to listen to all the episodes and learn more about my podcasting story. The website also makes it really easy to look for specific categories. For example, you can look at only episodes about local history or episodes only about homelessness or sustainability, or any of the many themes my guests and I have covered in previous seasons.

Next week on Tuesday, 7 February 2023 in the season finale, the Meet the Mancunian Podcast talks to Susan Roughton about granting wishes for terminally ill adults. Season four ends on Tuesday, 7 February 2023. I'll be taking a two-month break for some travel and finishing up at my current day job.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Season five of the Meet the Mancunian podcast returns on Tuesday 11 April 2023 with a new series of inspiring guests. I've already started recording the interviews and I think you're really going to enjoy it.

Please do leave a review or a voice message on my website, www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. It takes only a few minutes, and I look forward to hearing from you.

You also follow the Meet the Mancunian podcast on Twitter as @Mancunianpod or on Facebook and Instagram as @MeettheMancunian. Do give us a like or a share there or leave a comment. Thank you so much.