Learning Disability Week is all about making sure disabled or neurodiverse people have a voice in decisions that affect them. This is exactly what’s happening with an exciting project between IBN, AFK, Business and Trade, and the University of Arts. We’re all working together to understand what makes starting a business hard for young disabled or neurodiverse people – and how to fix it.

Business and Trade and the University of Arts are doing important research. They want to know: how can we help small businesses succeed? What stops young people from getting the help they need?

What makes this research special is that it includes everyone – local businesses, charities, and most importantly, disabled and neurodiverse young people who know what the real problems are.

AFK joined this research to make sure the young people they work with have their say. When AFK went to the research workshop, they shared the real stories of young people trying to start businesses. This is exactly what Learning Disability Week is about – making sure disabled people are part of the conversation, not just talked about.

The big goal is to use what we learn to change how the government helps small businesses. This means the ideas and experiences shared by AFK’s young entrepreneurs could help make business support better for everyone.

This is inclusion working properly. Instead of trying to fix things later, this research is making sure support systems work for disabled people from the very start.

The partnership doesn’t just happen in meeting rooms. This summer, researchers will visit AFK’s Pop-up shops. These are real businesses run by disabled and neurodiverse young people. The researchers will watch how things work and learn what good support looks like.

These Pop-up shops show everything Learning Disability Week celebrates – young people getting the chance to show what they can do and getting the right support to succeed.

IBN helped connect AFK with this research through Rae Jones from Business and Trade. This shows how powerful it is when different groups work together. Each organisation brings something different, but together they can make a much bigger difference.

This Learning Disability Week, this partnership shows what’s possible when research, policy, and real experiences come together to create change.

What’s exciting about this work is that it could help for years to come. By making sure disabled and neurodiverse voices are heard from the beginning, we’re not just solving today’s problems – we’re making sure future business support works for everyone.

Every problem we identify and fix could help countless young people in the future. Every story shared by AFK’s young people helps everyone understand what good business support really looks like.

As this research continues, the partnership shows a new way of making policy that includes everyone. It reminds us that real change happens when we listen to the people who are affected by the rules and systems we create.

This Learning Disability Week, we celebrate the young entrepreneurs who are breaking down barriers every day. We also celebrate the researchers and organisations who know that these young people’s voices must be heard.

When we build systems that work for everyone, we all benefit from the amazing ideas and hard work that disabled and neurodiverse entrepreneurs bring to business.