Scope (British charity)
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Scope logo
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| Formation | 1951 |
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| Headquarters | London, N7 |
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Region served
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England and Wales |
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Chief Executive
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Mark Atkinson |
| Website | www.scope.org.uk |
Scope is the leading pan-disability charity in England and Wales [1]. The charity campaigns to make the country a place where disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else. The charity runs services - like an Online Community [2] , employment support [3] and a Helpline [4] - that offers direct support to disabled people and their families in the form of practical help or services.
Scope has run national campaigns to challenge negative attitudes towards disability, like its flagship End the Awkward campaign [5], which tackled the fact that two-thirds of people say they feel akward around disability.
In 2017 the charity announced its new five-year strategy, Everyday equality [6], which set out how the organisation would work up until 2022.
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 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, 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.
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