Our Learning Disabilities Blog Is One Year Old!

This week Our Learning Disabilities Blog will be one year old! When we started the site Helen and I had no idea what to expect. Neither of us had ever done anything like this before. We just wanted to share the experiences we have gained over the years as a parent (Helen) and a teacher (me) and hoped that we might somehow make someone else’s life a little easier with the ideas or information we could provide. Here’s a few of the things we are really pleased that Our Learning Disabilities Blog has achieved this year.

How Many Countries?

We had no idea what to expect in terms of readership and in the beginning it was slow to grow. Gradually, however, people in countries outside the Uk found the blog and I would send Helen screenshots of our stats highlighting the new countries added to our list of views. Our Learning Disabilities Blog has now been read in 25 countries. Most of our readers are in the UK and the USA but we’ve also had readers as far away as New Zealand, and in countries all around the world including Egypt, China and Finland. 

#SecretLifeOfUs

In February Helen’s post ‘Being a parent…and an advocate’ was posted on the Disabled Children’s Partnership website as part of their #SecretLifeOfUs campaign. This was followed in April by her post ‘Change can be scary…like leaving school.’

#SENDABetterMessage

In July it was James’ turn and we were very excited that the Disabled Children’s Partnership used this gorgeous picture of him in their email and Twitter promotion of their #SENDABetterMessage campaign. It was very strange to open an e mail from the DCP to find James looking back at me 😃.

Collaborating With Other Bloggers

In August we published our first post written by someone other than Helen or I. Scarlett Merry’s article ‘Being a young carer and the impact on my daily life’ is an insight into her role as a young carer for her brother, George. Scarlett’s parents run the This Special Moment Photography blog where they write about their own lives and experiences with the aim of people gaining an insight to what life is like for special needs children, young people and their families. They have kindly reposted one of Helen’s posts (Change can be scary…like leaving school) and my photo challenge post. It’s great to be sharing ideas and posts with other bloggers and we hope to be able to collaborate with more people in the coming year.

A Mention On The Radio

Recently, Meta, James’ music therapist, was interviewed about her work on Wey Valley Radio. Meta spoke about her work with people who have additional needs, mental health issues and dementia, and using music for meditation. She very kindly gave Our Learning Disabilities Blog a mention too 😃. Thank you, Meta.

Our Most Popular Posts

Far and away the most viewed post is Helen’s write up about the Wolf Hirschhorn Syndrome Trust National Meeting – it must have been read by everyone who was there and lots who weren’t! Other very popular posts have been the ones Helen has written about James’ move into supported living, especially ‘James’ move – the hardest decision to make’ and ‘Reflecting on James’ first year in supported accommodation.’ These have really struck a chord with readers. 

My own most popular post is ‘Age appropriate – let’s make it person appropriate,’ which seemed to strike a chord with readers working in education too. 

Our most popular recipe post is the sweet and chocolatey Rocky Road Bites. You can find the recipe here and lots of others, both sweet and savoury, here.  

And our most popular product review post is about the ‘Places of the World’ matching cards. I think I love them as much as James – and he is a huge matching card fan! 

Future Plans

Coming up we have craft projects for Grandparents’ Day and Christmas, a review of Jed Baker’s book ‘No More Meltdowns’, some ideas for Christmas presents and much more!

Thank you to everybody who has supported us this year by reading, subscribing, commenting and contacting us. If there is something that you would like to see on our site then please let us know, we’d love to hear from you.