Since 2010, BuDS has helped its volunteers towards work. Our Reach4Work project, created in 2018, codified and developed that help, creating a professional wrap-around service for our disabled volunteers who want to move into or closer to work.
BuDS is exceptionally successful at moving disabled jobseeker volunteers into or closer to work…
Please note that the BuDDies scheme is currently on hold due to ongoing challenges facing charity funding across England. Find out more at the button below.
Are you feeling lonely or stressed at home? Need a friendly chat with someone who understands? The BuDS BuDDies are here to help!
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BuDS publishes some of our articles in EasyRead format. These articles are produced by our volunteers, and so our capacity is limited. Over time we will publish more EasyRead articles. Please be patient with us whilst we grow this project.
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The BuDS Enquiries Team answers questions and queries from disabled people about a very wide range of issues. We try to fill the gaps left by other support services and helplines, so we often support disabled people with complex and difficult issues.
Any disabled person in England can contact the Enquiries project for help. Parents, carers, and supporters can also contact us on behalf of a disabled person. We don’t have strict rules about who we can help: we will always do our best to support you and will let you know immediately if, for any reason, we can’t.
The Enquiries project is staffed entirely by volunteers, many of them disabled people themselves. We are often very busy and there may be a delay in getting back to you. We are sorry about this, but we can only do so much. The Enquiries project is not a crisis or emergency service.
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The BuDS SEND Transitions Service is a three-year project funded by The Rothschild Foundation. The purpose of the SEND Transitions Service is to improve the experience of disabled children and young people moving through key transitions within school education and from school education into work or further/higher education. It will do this by:
The SEND Transitions Service is made up of workstreams from a number of BuDS projects, principally Fair4All Education and Reach4Work.
To learn more about the Reach4Work workstream, which is looking at disabled young people’s transition from education to employment, click here.
Fair4All Visitors is a BuDS project to help visitor attractions to be more accessible and inclusive for disabled people.
The Fair4All Education project tackles the most important educational issues facing disabled children and young people, and their parents/carers, in Bucks.
The core of the Fair4All Education project is a ‘working community’ of professionals, parents, carers and disabled young people who are passionate about making a real difference. Working under the BuDS umbrella, the Fair4All Education team works together to define an agenda for action and plan how change will be made to happen.
Read MoreDisabled people are often excluded from outdoor public events. This is not because they do not want to attend these events, but because the way the event is organized and staged creates barriers that make it difficult or impossible for them to attend. BuDS’ free-to-use Fair4All event project helps event organisers remove those barriers and attract more disabled people to their events, making them more successful. There are over 40,000 disabled people in Buckinghamshire and over 100,000 families with a disabled member, so being more accessible can significantly boost an event’s popularity and attendance.
Event organisers are often not aware that they are creating barriers which are reducing the appeal of their events. Event management training and qualifications do not usually cover disabled accessibility and inclusion. Disabled people are so used to events not being accessible that most do not even try to attend, which means event organisers do not see the difficulties that disabled people face.
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Disabled people are sometimes subject to abuse, insults or physical violence because of their disability. The BuDS Fair4All Attitudes and Hate Crime project supports people affected by disability hate, helps them report it to the police if they wish, and campaigns to change attitudes and combat hostility toward disabled people.
Read MoreThe IAG team works tirelessly to produce easy to read, fact-checked and reliable articles about issues relevant to disabled people. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these have included weekly risk posts which break down the latest case, hospitalisation, death and vaccination statistics; analyses of Government policy, and scientific updates about the coronavirus. To read these posts, please see below or visit our Facebook page using the button below:
If you would like to volunteer for the IAG team as a researcher or writer, please visit our volunteering page to find out more.
The Fair4All Card is a secure, evidence based card that can be used by any disabled person to communicate the reasonable adjustments they need.
We created the scheme in August 2020 and have grown from offering around 12 reasonable adjustments to now offering over 40.
Find out more about the scheme below.
BuDS knows that bus services are still inaccessible for many disabled people, and we welcome the Government announcement of further grants to help bus operators make their vehicles more accessible. Our member, Fiona, spoke to the media about how buses disable her in her everyday life.
She told Greatest Hits Radio that the system currently isn’t working.
She said: “Getting on the bus is fairly straightforward, most of the buses now have a ramp that flips out from the floor.”
“Getting past the driver’s cab and into the wheelchair spot is not so easy in some cases because some of the buses are designed with a very narrow gap.”
“It usually means I can’t travel on my own, I have to have my partner with me to physically take my power chair out of power mode and push it manually through the gap because it’s just too narrow.”
You can read the full article, and the Government announcement, using the buttons below.
A Fair4All Access & Inclusion Survey is a comprehensive, holistic, assessment of how accessible and inclusive a business, site or service is for all disabled people. It includes but goes beyond those aspects of accessibility normally covered in a BS or DDA/EA compliance access audit.
Fair4All Access & Inclusion surveys are a unique service offered by Buckinghamshire Disability Service (BuDS).
Read MoreBuDS always strives to make events in Buckinghamshire accessible for disabled people. However, we have recently been hit with a wave of illness within our events team. After lots of careful consideration, our Trustees felt that attending this event would put too much strain on the health of our volunteers, and we are therefore very sadly announcing that we will not be attending this event.
If you have any questions or comments, please email info@buds.org.uk.
Please note volunteer applications have closed for this event.
Do you want to help support disabled people and get to attend an amazing event? BuDS is looking for event volunteers for the Chiltern Open Air Museum Christmas Weekend, on the 3rd and 4th December 2022.
The event will show how Christmas was celebrated in the past and give you the opportunity to see some of the Museum’s historic buildings traditionally decorated for Christmas. There will be an artisan Christmas market and the Museum’s shop will be full of handmade products.
We are excited to support this event to be more inclusive and accessible for all disabled people by providing an access information and support, and an emergency quiet space.
Volunteers will get free time to enjoy the event and will be able to enjoy the demonstrations, or just have some chill out time!
Strict Covid-safety protocols will be in place to keep everyone safe and every volunteer will be provided with a BuDS polo shirt and PPE face mask.
If you’d like to be part of the volunteer team for this amazing event, please fill in the expression of interest form, and we will be in touch! Disabled people are very welcome to volunteer, and we have a wide range of roles to suit everyone.
We are very welcoming, even if you can only commit to an hour during the weekend.
BuDS’ Fair4All Events project is helping to make the COAM Christmas Weekend more accessible in a number of ways. Read on to learn more.
As part of the BuDS Fair4All Visitor project, a ‘BuDDy tour’ of six disabled people from BuDS visited the Paralympic Heritage Trust at Stoke Mandeville Stadium on 4 September 2022. The purpose of the visit was to assess and help develop a new phone app being developed by the Trust. The app guides visitors around the Stadium and its surroundings, giving information about the things to see and do.
All the tourists were volunteers or BuDS staff. We were not paid or commissioned by the Paralympic Heritage Trust, and our views and opinions are entirely independent.
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As part of the BuDS Fair4All Visitor project, a ‘BuDDy tour’ of twelve disabled people from BuDS visited Waddesdon Manor on 24 September 2022 to assess the venue’s disabled accessibility and inclusion. All the tourists were volunteers or BuDS staff. We were not paid or commissioned by Waddesdon Manor, and our views and opinions are entirely independent.
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As a mark of respect for HM The Queen, BuDS has postponed our planned BuDDy Tours of Waddesdon Manor and the Chiltern Open Air Museum (COAM). The Tours will now take place on Saturday 24 September (Waddesdon Manor) and Sunday 25 September (COAM).
A BuDDy Tour is an escorted tour by a mixed group of disabled people to a visitor attraction, to assess how accessible and inclusive the place is for disabled visitors. If you’d like to be part of either or both Tours, please e-mail volunteering@buds.org.uk straight away. Admission is included, along with a meet and greet with the site managers. BuDS Representatives will accompany the tours and be on hand at all times.
The BuDDy Tours were organised to support the Visit Buckinghamshire Boost, Boost Accessibility project. The BuDDy Tours were delivered by BuDS volunteers, in partnership with Visit Buckinghamshire, Buckinghamshire Business First, and Buckinghamshire Council. The Visit Buckinghamshire Boost programme was funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund.
BuDS’ Fair4All Events project is helping to make Towersey Festival more accessible in a number of ways. Read on to learn more.
We are delighted to announce that we will be working in partnership with Towersey Festival this August bank holiday to make the 4-day event even more accessible and inclusive for disabled guests. The charity’s volunteers will work alongside event organisers to staff disabled viewing areas, support disabled campers and guests, and provide an emergency quiet space for people needing a break.
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