Where it all began

Playback was established in 1998 born out of in the lived experiences of founder members Liz Fitzpatrick and Margaret Scott, both parents of children with disabilities. They met in 1992 as campaigners joining forces to help improve services and experiences for their children and others, particularly those who used wheelchairs.

Liz served as a nurse in the Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corp (QARANC) when her son Barry was born in 1982 in a military hospital. He has profound and complex disabilities including cerebral palsy due to medical negligence.

On her return to Scotland in 1989 Liz began her campaigning efforts to improve services for Barry. She realised that it was not enough for her to be a representative of her son, but that she had to find a way to include him and others like him to affect people’s attitudes and perceptions around disability. Margaret campaigned for her daughter Fiona who had similar issues to Barry. Joining forces seemed like a good idea and they spent many years raising awareness of the issues for their children and families. Liz ran a special needs playscheme at Westerlea school. This was to become the starting point of engaging the children themselves in having a voice to effect change.

Liz and Margaret planned a two-day consultation in Edinburgh in September 1998 with 26 children and young people using the medium of play. They used a rights-based approach to consult with them about the wheelchair service, respite provision and recreational opportunities. This they thought, would provide a platform for the children to be heard and have a ‘VOICE’. The first lesson learned by Liz and Margaret was that the children had their own agenda. This included how they felt, how people viewed them and solutions to overcome these. These talked about attitudes, perceptions, inclusion, equality, fairness and respect.

The consultation process was filmed and the group then called themselves Playback. Their film was titled Looking Through Disability. They felt that some viewers may take a little longer to understand their messages and so would need to play back the film (some more often than others).

They wanted to be known as children with disabilities not disabled children. They were children first. Liz and Margert felt compelled to take their message to other children and for them to see the film. They gathered support from other liked-minded people and developed resources to accompany the film. This became the first educational resource to find a way into classrooms and children. Education is where they felt they could best influence the hearts and minds of our future adults and decision makers.

Playback was therefore born out of an identified need to listen to and include children and young people with disabilities in decisions being made about them.

The resource was well received by the Scottish Parliament and they agreed to provide all 32 local authorities in Scotland in 2000 with a copy. Liz was tasked with following up with each local authority to find out what they were going to do with it. Local authorities requested more copies for their schools and this led Playback ICE established as a company 2001.  Liz quickly realised that, whilst the resource could support teachers with the agenda of inclusion and how to engage children in consultation, they needed to access training that would further support this. A training programme for teachers was developed and was delivered across Scotland.

The children on the other hand wanted to continue playing, have fun and meet up with their friends, (which they had been doing from 1998 unfunded). Liz and Margaret established the Playback Trust to organize play events that the children wanted every month for them and their families in Edinburgh and the Lothians area. They group also became more inclusive in that participants did not need to be in wheelchairs to get into the group!