Who We Are
Manchester Disability Collaborative (MDC) is a city-level partnership and trusted force in removing barriers across the city.
We are led by Breakthrough, a Disabled People’s Organisation, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and Manchester City Council, and we have partners from sectors across the city working to amplify disabled people’s voices in decision-making. We are strengthening our partnership and influence in the city governance, as well as our broader communities.
By embedding lived experience and solution-focussed working, we help centre Disabled people’s voices and promote universal design that works for everyone at every stage of life.
Aims
- To amplify the voices of disabled people in Manchester.
- To facilitate coproduction and codesign between Manchester’s influential organisations and disabled people.
- To be the leading forum for all matters relating to disability in the city.
Structure
The Collaborative has 5 workstreams. These are:
- Transport
- Education
- Housing and the Built Environment
- Employment and Skills
- Health and Social Care
These workstreams meet regularly. We also have our Strategic Forum, where our key partners such as Disabled People’s Organisations and stakeholders meet to discuss the direction and progress of the MDC.
We are also proud to have Manchester Lived Experience Leaders on board.
Moreover, we organise the Disabled People’s Assembly every year.
Our Work and Impact:
We have helped shape transport policy with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM). We have also informed Manchester City Council’s (MCC) responses to national policies on social security and employment, and supported better website design and accessible information.
We are proud that our co-produced approach is being recognised for its impact. We are also pleased that its influence is spreading deeper into, and beyond, Manchester. These changes are helping to improve everyday life for Disabled people in Manchester.
Across our Workstream areas, we work with a wide range of committed partners to help ensure Disabled people are at the heart of leadership and decision-making.
In June, MDC’s Chair Toby Mildon and Strategic Manager Jas Taylor met with Jackie Driver OBE, Councillor Rawlins, Deputy Leader of MCC, and Tom Stannard, Chief Executive of MCC.
Together, they discussed a shared vision for removing barriers. This builds on the City Council’s Inclusive City motion from November 2025.
The meeting reaffirmed a shared commitment to meaningful engagement that recognises and properly resources the expertise of Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs).
Our Disabled People’s Assembly, workstreams and Forum show that when DPOs lead, and when allies commit to accountability, systems improve.
At a time when DPOs face significant challenges, these platforms are more important than ever.
We are focused on maintaining and strengthening MDC’s influence as Inclusive Manchester develops.
In our discussions with MCC, we highlighted the need for real power-sharing, meaningful co-production and accountable relationships so DPO leadership is part of how the city is governed.
As a result of this meeting, we have agreed to meet quarterly to build a strong relationship between MDC and MCC, grounded in accountability and lived experience.
Kyda Grabham recently joined us on placement, and produced a report that identified where we can enhance our intersectional inclusion. They mapped the community organisations who are making change in the city, and our overlaps. We also gained some clear next steps about groups whose voices need to be raised in our work, and barrier-removal we can enact in our own approach.
The Disabled People’s Sounding Board (part of MDC’s Health and Social Care workstream) is driving community-focussed change from the ground up. It reports into the City Council about what our communities need and how we can get there.
We see how pairing disabled people’s expertise with the power to make decisions is essential to removing inequalities. Our impact was celebrated at June’s Community Health Equity Celebration event at the Manchester Art Gallery, and we are looking forward to meeting in person in July as a safe space for DPOs, as well as doing some community engagement work that serves disabled Mancunians.
Each of our workstreams is driven by coproduction and tackles a range of areas.
Our Transport workstream has committed members looking at digital messaging, customer courtesy, active travel, and national policy to name a few areas. We have nearly ten subgroups!
Our Education workstream has partners from a host of universities and colleges. It brings together best practice and collaborating to remove barriers to performance, progression and dignity in education. This workstream is continuing to expand by working within the community to coproduce training that is intersectional and consistent across the city’s institutions.
Our Housing and Built Environment workstream is connecting with a variety of groups, and is also developing upskilling routes for disabled people in the city to influence the landscape as auditors.
Our Employment workstream is training SMEs in Manchester and working with employers across the city to enact the Social Model of Disability in their work.
With all of this, fuelled by a very small core team, it would be hard to dispute our passion. We are proud of what has been built so far, and even more hopeful about what comes next. Our invitation is simple: work with us, back lived experience, and help build a city where everyone can belong and thrive.
Introduction to the Manchester Disability Collaborative in British Sign Language
Contact
To learn more about our work, how you could get involved, or any other queries, contact:
mdc@breakthrough-uk.co.uk
Follow our Socials!
We post regular updates about our work. Follow us to ensure you don’t miss anything.