What does genuine inclusion look like in a care organisation? For many charities, inclusion is something that happens to people with disabilities — services are designed for them, programmes are delivered to them, outcomes are measured about them. The Shaftesbury Group, formerly known as Livability, is trying something different.

The organisation, which provides care and support to people with disabilities across England and Wales, has launched a new 'Learning Together' initiative that brings support staff and the people they support into the same training room at the same time. Rather than training staff about how to support people with disabilities, and separately offering activities to the people they support, the programme creates a shared learning environment where both groups participate as equals.

The courses cover practical life skills — budgeting, cooking, communication, digital literacy — but the deeper purpose is about something more fundamental: co-production. The belief that people with disabilities are not passive recipients of care but active participants in shaping the services and communities they are part of.

This matters theologically as well as practically. The Christian tradition that gave rise to organisations like Shaftesbury has always insisted on the equal dignity of every human being, regardless of ability. The 'Learning Together' initiative is an attempt to embody that conviction institutionally — to build it into the structures of how care is delivered, not merely to assert it in mission statements.

In an era when the social care sector is under enormous pressure — from funding cuts, staff shortages, and rising demand — initiatives like this offer a model of what person-centred care can look like when it is taken seriously. It is a small but significant sign of what it means to treat every person as made in the image of God.