In the picture

Add to My Folder

By Susan Clow — Project Manager for In The Picture

Scope is a national disability organisation whose focus is cerebral palsy. Its vision: for disabled people to achieve equality. One of its campaigns, Time to Get Equal, includes a pioneering project called In The Picture which aims to encourage authors, illustrators and publishers to embrace diversity – including disabled children alongside their non-disabled peers in illustrations and storylines in books for young readers.

Sense of isolation

Launched in 2005, In The Picture hopes to raise the profile of the 770,000 disabled children in the UK who have virtually no role models in literature.

The project targets books for younger readers, because they contain the first powerful messages that help children make sense of the world. SCOPE believes that the absence of images of disabled children in these books reinforces the sense of isolation they often experience – and affects the attitude of non-disabled children, too.