Phillipa Vincent-Connolly, BA PGCE PG Dip (Hum)

PhD candidate, historian, author, writer and life coach
Aims for Life – Coaching for Disabled People

Award category:

Education and Research

Phillipa Vincent-Connolly is a historian, writer, and published author of historical fiction and nonfiction. She is a consultant with a special interest in disability and is becoming the ‘go-to’ broadcaster on this subject, especially recently with the publication of her book, ‘Disability and the Tudors’. This is the first book in a series she is writing on disabilities, and it benefits from Phillipa’s own experience of living with Cerebral Palsy.

She is currently working towards her PhD, specialising in disability history, and bringing the subject as a pedagogy topic into schools. She has spoken at the National Archives and the British Library to great acclaim. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Phillipa has written for History Today, has been interviewed regularly for BBC radio, and has appeared in mini-TV documentaries. Phillipa has both the research, broadcasting, and writing abilities to adapt to any project and is the future of the past.

Phillipa is a keen activist, giving a contemporary voice to disabled people of the past, and those who currently feel disenfranchised. Phillipa is a certified Napoleon Hill Institute Coach, and she has set up AIMS for Life – Coaching for Disabled People non-profit charity, because she wants to enable other disabled people worldwide, to share their often unheard experiences, so they can set goals, attain them, and live the lives they really want. Her own disability has allowed her to identify with and empathise with those who have not been heard and she is passionate about equality for the disabled.

It is an absolute pleasure to have been nominated for Disability Power 100 2024, and I believe that ALL disabled people should share their life experiences, challenges, and successes to create an inclusive, positive, conversation about disabilities. Whatever our minds can perceive, we can achieve. The only thing that limits us, is our own thinking.

Q&A

Phillipa Vincent-Connolly, BA PGCE PG Dip (Hum)
No matter how big your goals, go for them – dream big, that’s when the magic happens, and then everything transpires to bring about what you really want in life.
My PhD work and my work as a historian is impacting schools, teachers and how disabled people are percieved in ther school communities and wider society. I am creating teaching resources for teachers so that students can be taught to critically analyse disability, and issues around disability like discrimination, ableism, empathy, and bringing life experiences of disabled people from history onto the curricula by using ‘storying’ methods. This is nationa wide. Through my charity, I am sponsoring disabled people to access personal development coaching so that they can see their own worth, build their self confidence, break down perceptions they have of themselves that are negative, and be able to set new goals for themselves to create the kind of lives they really want to live – to be able to show they have so much to contribute, and can make a difference in their communities, families and the wider world. I am looking to change the conversation around disability to eradicate old tropes, ableism, discrimination and create empathy, understanding, inclusion and acceptance for every person who identifies as disabled.
To have sponsored at least 500 disabled people a year through AIMS for Life – Coaching for Disabled People to transform not only the lives of disabled people, their families and communities, but to also transform my life, because as a disabled person with cerebral palsy I have been unemployed for years, because schools would not permanently employ me, because I am a disabled secondary school teacher, and they saw my physical disability as a liability, which created too many questions for students, so i thought i would change students’ perceptions of disability from within academia, even though I did make a huge impact as a disabled supply teacher. I want to write three more history titles on disability – Disability and the Victorians, Disability and the Georgians, Disability and the Stuarts, and finish my PhD. I would also like to be awarded an OBE for my work with my non profit and as a role model for disabled people.
Visit historical sites of interests, go to museums, art galleries, personal development seminars to learn all the time.
My two boys bring me joy. I am proud to be a Mum to a 21 year old and a 19 year old. Learning about myself, and improving and working on myself brings me joy, especially when I achieve my goals.
Cats
The discriminatory policies, lack of support towards disabled people – I’d make life easier for those with lifelong disabilities.
Benefit means testing – if you have a life long permanent disability that never changes then you should automatically get the support you need. Less discrimination from employers, otherwise the government should not expect so much of disabled people. Disabled people working in politics, schools, in most areas of life where their life experience is valuable.
Aims for Life - Coaching for Disabled People.

Areas of expertise

Charity, social enterprise, Disability Advocacy, Education, Equality, History and Heritage, Publishing, Television, radio, podcast

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