External Links for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)
For more information about specific disabilities or learning difficulties, please refer to the websites below. We’ve also researched organisations, including museums and galleries which are doing exemplary work in the area of SEND.
Return to our main page: The AccessArt Offer to SEND
The Royal Academy of Arts
The RA Access programme for visitors with additional needs.
www.royalacademy.org.uk/access-at-the-ra
Family workshop for children with SEND: call the shots – October 15th 2023
The National Autistic Society
Autism Together
Supporting the individual with autism to maximise life opportunities and offering a wide range of specialist support services to people with autism and their families.
the Autism Alliance
The major UK network of specialist autism charities.
NATIONAL DEAF CHILDREN'S SOCIETY
The leading charity dedicated to creating a world without barriers for deaf children and young people.
Action on hearing loss
Providing support for people with hearing loss and tinnitus.
RNIB
Supporting people with sight loss.
Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities Network
Downs Syndrome association
About learning Disabilities
actionspace
Supporting the development of artists with learning disabilities.
ArtBox london
Free weekly studio sessions for artists with learning disabilities plus the opportunity to exhibit and sell work.
Core Arts
Promoting positive mental health and wellbeing through creative learning.
dash
A disability led visual arts organisation.
Rowan
A Cambridge-based charity set up to improve the lives of learning-disabled people through the provision of services and meaningful activities. It has five studios working in a variety of mediums to produce high quality art and crafts.
full circle arts
A disabled led organisation encouraging inclusive participation to give people the capacity, inspiration and tools to be part of the cultural conversation and achieve excellence in the arts.
Red2Green
A Cambridgeshire charity providing services including learning, leisure and work opportunities for people with a wide range of disabilities, including mental ill-health, learning disabilities and autism spectrum conditions.
outside in
A platform for artists who see themselves as facing barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or isolation.
Project Ability
A Glasgow-based visual arts organisation providing creative opportunities for children and adults with disabilities and mental health issues.
Rocket Artists
A group of artists with learning disabilities making visual artwork and performance alongside a community of over 100 other artists at Phoenix Arts, Brighton.
Artists Access 2 Art Colleges
Offers inclusive courses:
studio upstairs
Promoting artistic practice as a valuable way to create meaning and purpose in life, leading from isolation to community for adults experiencing enduring mental or emotional difficulties.
DISABLED PHOTOGRAPHERS' SOCIETY
Photography for people with disabilities, or their carers, or groups or anyone with an interest in helping disabled people.
the film bunch
Showcasing short films from upcoming filmmakers from around the world. The Film Bunch’s mission is to improve access for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to mainstream short films, by providing subtitles, British Sign Language interpreters and live captioning at their events.
carousel
Supporting learning disabled artists develop artistic projects in film, music, performance and production.
arts and disability ireland
The national development and resource organisation for arts and disability.
creative future
Nurtures marginalised artists and writers in their creative development, providing skills training, mentoring, exhibiting, promoting and publishing opportunities.
disability arts online
A digital hub that connects people to the world of disability arts: blogs, articles and editorials, information on arts projects and a weekly e-bulletin with the latest listings for arts-related disability jobs, opportunities and events across the UK and abroad.
WESC Foundation
A leading national visual impairment centre for the education and care of children, young people and adults, aged 5-25, based in the south west.
Arts and Minds
The leading arts and mental health charity in Cambridgeshire offering Arts on Prescription, a series of friendly, weekly art workshops for people experiencing depression, stress or anxiety.
Corali
A committed group of people made up of performers with learning disabilities and artist collaborators and educationalists who do not. Corali exists to explore the unique creativity and expression of people with learning disabilities by putting on original performance works and by offering on-going professional development, education and training opportunities.
Early Birds and Night owls at the Science Museum, London
Enables families with children who have an Autism Spectrum Condition to come along and enjoy the Museum free from the hustle and bustle of the general public.
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/events/other/early_birds_event
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/events/other/Night_Owls
The British Museum
Access and SEN – Inclusive learning opportunities for all young visitors offering a wide range of facilities for students with visual, hearing, learning and mobility impairments.
britishmuseum.org/learning/schools_and_teachers/access_and_sen.aspx
Museum of London
Events for visitors with additional needs, including Morning Explorers for families with children who have autistic spectrum conditions.
The National Gallery
The Gallery provides British Sign Language-interpreted talks on paintings for visitors who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and art sessions for visitors who are blind and partially sighted. For school groups, the Gallery can also offer sessions using multi-sensory materials for students who are blind and partially sighted and for students with learning disabilities.
V&A Museum
Assistance offered for visitors with additional needs, including a sensory back-pack designed for children with visual impairments.
The Museum of Liverpool
The Museum has signed up to the Autism Charter to make the Museum autism-friendly, through Autism Together and the Connect to Autism scheme. It is piloting learning sessions for visitors with autism. It also offers tactile tours of the Museum.
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/world-museum/event/curator-tour-tactile-return-of-gods
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Portals to the World: a free art appreciation course designed especially for individuals living at home with a dementia diagnosis and their care partners. Each week there is a short talk in one of the galleries followed by a related art handling, or hands on, art activity.
The Story Museum, Oxford
Visitors with disabilities receive a concessionary ticket and if they require a companion or carer then this person receives a free ticket. Relaxed Visits on the first Sunday morning of every month, are for those with autism, learning disabilities or sensory and communication disorders.
the royal airforce museum
The museum has prepared a couple of free information packs for those visitors with autism who wish to come to the London site. Both packs are free to download.
www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/plan-your-day/accessibility.aspx
The Discovery Museum, newcastle
To support learners with special educational needs and disabilities the gallery is keen to work in partnership with teaching staff to adapt as appropriate their core workshop offer to provide inclusive learning experiences.
There is a Visual Story of the Museum which some children may find useful to see before a visit and can be downloaded for free. There is also an online guide with a Street View of the different floors in the Museum which can be used to explore the Museum before a visit. This may be beneficial to some visitors with conditions that cause anxiety when entering a new environments.
Whizz Kidz
Transforming the lives of disabled children by providing the vital equipment, support and life skills they need to reach their full potential.
Amici Dance Theatre Company
A unique dance theatre company integrating able-bodied & disabled artists and performers. Its productions and workshops have had a major impact world-wide, challenging conventional attitudes about disability and the arts.
Drake Music
Working where music, disability and technology meet to:
- Create opportunities and instruments that make music fully accessible
- Increase participation in music-making at all levels
- Build an integrated musical culture where disabled and non-disabled musicians work together as equals.
Face Front
An inclusive theatre company of disabled and nondisabled artists producing professional, entertaining and challenging multi-layered theatre, through its Theatre in Schools, Participation and Theatre programmes.
Performances and workshops, which take place in regional theatres, schools and a variety of venues, are carefully crafted to be accessible to all, including people with physical, sensory and learning impairments.
Graeae Theatre Company
Champions accessibility and provides a platform for new generations of Deaf and disabled talent through the creation of trail-blazing theatre, at home and internationally.
Half Moon
A theatre company based in Tower Hamlets, London working to engage participants (artists and young people) who often feel excluded from arts activity, such as those from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, Deaf and disabled people, or those excluded due to socio-economic circumstance.
stopgap dance
Employing disabled and non-disabled artists who find innovative ways to collaborate. Stopgap are experts of inclusive choreography and have extensive experience of nurturing disabled and non-disabled artists for making inclusive works.
Visable
Creating mainstream professional opportunities for actors, presenters and models with disabilities.
Purple Patch Arts
Working across the Yorkshire region offering learning programmes to people with learning disabilities and professionals that support them. All of their programmes use creative, interactive and multi-sensory teaching methods.
Thelma Hulbert Gallery
Based in Devon, the gallery has an ongoing programme of occasional workshops by artists, offering practical, accessible approaches to visual art. They also have monthly Art & Mind sessions: an afternoon of artmaking in a safe and welcoming atmosphere for people who have experience of mild to moderate stress, anxiety or depression, or who care for someone who has.
Outside In
Providing a platform for artists who see themselves as facing barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or isolation. The goal of the project is to create a fairer art world which rejects traditional values and institutional judgements about whose work can and should be displayed.
Livability
Providing disability and community services that promote inclusion and wellbeing for all.
Tincture of museum
A blog with an ongoing discussion of Autism in museums.
Jhinuk Sarkar
An artist and illustrator who facilitates workshops for learning disabled people and physically and invisibly impaired people.
Rehab4Addiction
Learn more about overcoming addiction for the sensory impaired by reading this informative article by Ollie Clark.
www.rehab4addiction.co.uk/guides/overcoming-addiction-sensory-impaired