Lived experience evidence in disability policy making

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is part of UK Research and Innovation, a new organisation that brings together the UK’s seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England to maximise the contribution of each council and create the best environment for research and innovation to flourish. [...] These distinctions, based on literature and the author’s own lived and professional experience of being included in the policy making process as a non-executive director of a disabled people’s organisation and an individual who is openly neurodivergent, are critical to ensure that differences in experience are clearly distinguished. [...] Lived experience knowledge and involvement Research indicates that many policy makers understand the value of knowledge derived from lived experience, both for policy making and for practical policy implementation (Greenhalgh and Wieringa 2011; Henderson and Kendall 2011; Boivin et al. [...] The question of who gets a seat at the table, raised in current literature (Beresford 2019; Exley 2021), and both the literature and the documents and interviews suggest that more needs to be done to ensure a diversity of voices are heard. [...] The discourse around the lack of adherence to equality in participation typically referred to other participants in co-production, rather than Welsh Government officials or people with lived experience: “Many expressed the view that it was not necessarily the attitude and commitment of Welsh government to disabled people, but the attitudes, inactions and exclusionary behaviour of other public agen.