GRASSroots

Who are we?

We are a group of around 10 people with intellectual disabilities.
We meet on the first Thursday afternoon every month.
The group started in 2016.
We are based at GENERATE in Wandsworth, South London.

During the pandemic, we have been meeting on Zoom.

What do we do?

We talk about death, dying and bereavement.
Irene Tuffrey-Wijne, Jo Giles and Gemma Allen help us to talk.

We have shared our experiences and our ideas.
Sometimes we use pictures and stories to help us talk about dying.
We support each other.

We have helped Irene with her research projects.
We have helped her with the Talking About Dying Study.

We have given hints and tips to NHS England.
They put our words in a national guide.

During the pandemic, we have talked about Coronavirus, and people dying of it.
We have helped with webinars about it.
Here is an example of one of our meetings, where we talked about bereavement.

In January 2021, the BBC News team joined our meeting.
They wanted to know what we thought about many people with learning disabilities not getting the Covid vaccination.
We were on the national news that night!

We also have fun!

Interested?

Would you like to find out more?
Would you like to join the group?

Get in touch with Irene!