Anna co-ordinated a countywide DPO of DPOs (Disabled People’s Organisations) in the South East of England before moving to Disability Rights UK as its media and communications lead.
Her driving passion is to help create change with and for Disabled people so we are heard, seen, valued, afforded our rights at every level of society, and treated with dignity and respect. As a communications specialist and writer, she seeks to use the privilege of having a public voice to get our stories told in the national media and heard directly by both local and national Government, to ensure that those who feel they have no voice are truly heard and understood.
She also works with the UK’s national print, digital and broadcast media to create change within the industry, to increase representation and diversity in newsrooms and on screen, and to change the tone and language of the public voices which speak about disability, often without reflecting how we truly think and feel.
She is the Mirror’s Dis Life columnist, writing weekly with humour, quirk, passion and often outrage on all of the issues which affect Disabled people’s lives. She sits on the Mirror’s Editorial Advisory Board on diversity and inclusion. Her work as part of a team of Disabled writers, editors and photographers on the Mirror’s Disabled Britain series was cited by the paper as a key reason why it won the Daily Newspaper of the Year Award at the London Press Club Awards 2022.
Aside from her media work, she has founded the Canterbury Access Group to enable local Disabled people to have a stronger, unified voice to speak directly to businesses and local government to create change and a deeper understanding of access and the social model of disability. She is a Member of the Government’s Regional Stakeholder Network where she gives the full and frank views of Disabled people across the South East of England directly to the Disability Unit within the Cabinet Office, and she is a Policy and Communications Advisor for Chronic Illness Inclusion.
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