Business Enquiry

[Dani1986]

Hi everyone,

My name is Danielle Farrel, I'm 29 and I have cerebral palsy. As I'm approaching the end of my PhD at uni, I am looking into starting my own business, using my experiences of living with a disability to help and advise others.

Potentially the services that I would like to offer include advocacy, training for support workers and care providers and to share my experiences of living with a disability in general, to assist other service users, parents, family carers and employed carers. All of these services will potentially be delivered by myself in the first instance which I think gives my potential business its unique selling point as I will deliver services from a service user's perspective.

My reason for writing this post is to ask you guys for some feedback. Do you think this service would be useful? What aspect of the service would you be likely to use? Are there any gaps in the service I potentially want to provide? Is there anything I could do better to fill the gaps in existing services? This and any other feedback will be much appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you.

Danielle.

[John352]

Hi Danielle,

I read your comment with interest. I'm in a similar position to yourself, although seemingly at the end of my working life (59). I have cerebral palsy, a PhD and moved into a start-up company for several years. If my experiences can be of use to you, please contact me.

Re feedback: I think your potential offerings are good and useful. While it would be wonderful if everyone was as happy with a computer as yourself, currently the offerings include some services that are face-to-face. This may seem limiting, in that one person can cover only part of the UK, but it may be that all can benefit by seeing the physical structure existing for any potential client.

Your service offerings were correctly general. To go down to a level of detail, there seems to be a gap in helping people correctly fill in the application for PIP. The Government is now loading this task onto staff in the CABs, and while the CAB structure provides training and support, I doubt that the Government are adequately funding this.

Best regards,

John352

[Dani1986 in reply to John352]

hi John,

Thanks for your response to my post. I really appreciate it. Any advice you can offer about your experiences will be greatly appreciated. Heres my email address if you want to contact me perhaps we could talk some more. [e-mail]

I look forward to hearing from you

Danielle