Touretteshero
@touretteshero.bsky.social
I’ve just submitted my evidence for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into #AccessToWork. It’s becoming increasingly clear that huge, devastating changes are planned & the future of many working disabled people & those they employ, hangs in the balance www.touretteshero.com/safe/2026/02...
Access To Work Inquiry – Submit Your Evidence Now
I’ve spent the last few days gathering evidence for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into Access to Work. It’s becoming increasingly clear that huge, devastating changes are planned by the Govern...
www.touretteshero.com
February 17, 2026 at 5:38 PM
I’ve just submitted my evidence for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into #AccessToWork. It’s becoming increasingly clear that huge, devastating changes are planned & the future of many working disabled people & those they employ, hangs in the balance www.touretteshero.com/safe/2026/02...
As my shock at the death of my long-term creative collaborator & 1/3rd of the Tourettes Bipolar Alliance, Christopher ‘Captain Hotknives’ Smith starts turning into grief, now feels like the right moment to write in celebration of my favourite Captain: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/10/f...
For the Love of Hotknives
Content Warning: Description of death
I don’t know exactly where to start with this, so I’m going to get the devastating news out the way first. Then I can focus all my attention on paying tribute t...
www.touretteshero.com
February 13, 2026 at 1:00 PM
As my shock at the death of my long-term creative collaborator & 1/3rd of the Tourettes Bipolar Alliance, Christopher ‘Captain Hotknives’ Smith starts turning into grief, now feels like the right moment to write in celebration of my favourite Captain: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/10/f...
Applications are open for our 3rd volume of The Department for Wonder & Play zine, the 2026 theme is: Shadows in the Light. A supportive, low pressure opportunity for disabled, neurodivergent or chronically ill 14-26 yr olds. More here: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/09/t...
The Department for Wonder and Play – Shadows in the Light
Can you believe it’s been nearly three years since we launched our brilliant Zine, The Department for Wonder and Play? Now that we’ve got two volumes and two launch events under our collective belt, i...
www.touretteshero.com
February 9, 2026 at 10:04 PM
Applications are open for our 3rd volume of The Department for Wonder & Play zine, the 2026 theme is: Shadows in the Light. A supportive, low pressure opportunity for disabled, neurodivergent or chronically ill 14-26 yr olds. More here: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/09/t...
Reposted by Touretteshero
We were here. Easily the highlight of the festival for us, the wonderful anarchic joy of @touretteshero.bsky.social & Captain Hotknives. Also saw him in beautiful freeflowing form in late 2019 on the cusp of the world changing forever. Well it's a different time now alright... rest in peace Captain.
(1/2) Tourettes Hero and Captain Hotknives - Glade Stage - Glastonbury Festival 2016
YouTube video by HyperboreanUK
www.youtube.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:06 PM
We were here. Easily the highlight of the festival for us, the wonderful anarchic joy of @touretteshero.bsky.social & Captain Hotknives. Also saw him in beautiful freeflowing form in late 2019 on the cusp of the world changing forever. Well it's a different time now alright... rest in peace Captain.
Our new programme Knowledge Builders launches today. Supporting disabled thinkers to undertake their own research. You don’t have to have done research before. If you’re a disabled person over 16 with a question you'd like to explore this could be for you:
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/26/i...
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/26/i...
Introducing Knowledge Builders – Our New Research Programme
Supporting disabled-led thinking has been an important part of Touretteshero from the beginning, and over the last few years our research programmes have grown under the care of our Director of Resear...
www.touretteshero.com
January 26, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Our new programme Knowledge Builders launches today. Supporting disabled thinkers to undertake their own research. You don’t have to have done research before. If you’re a disabled person over 16 with a question you'd like to explore this could be for you:
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/26/i...
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/26/i...
Disabled people are facing an existential threat as #AccessToWork seems to be being gutted from the inside. We know it’s being reformed but not what this will look like or the timeline. We need leaders to engage now or risk undoing decades of investment
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/19/a...
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/19/a...
Access Anxiety
Often when I write these posts I’m doing it with a wide audience in mind, but this one is slightly different. While everyone’s welcome to read it, it’s particularly aimed at funding bodies, grant admi...
www.touretteshero.com
January 23, 2026 at 7:51 PM
Disabled people are facing an existential threat as #AccessToWork seems to be being gutted from the inside. We know it’s being reformed but not what this will look like or the timeline. We need leaders to engage now or risk undoing decades of investment
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/19/a...
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/19/a...
Save the date! 14th Feb, the day of love & if you love creative, disabled-led play then this is for you. Touretteshero’s Rebel Play is back & we’ve teamed up with @_TheWhitechapel & incredible new artists for Return Of The Rebels more info in the new year: www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/toure...
Touretteshero: Return of the Rebels - Whitechapel Gallery
Join Touretteshero for Return of the Rebels – a day of rebellious and inclusive fun for all ages. Expect multi-sensory play, creativity and connection, inviting you to explore what rebellious, inclusi...
www.whitechapelgallery.org
December 19, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Save the date! 14th Feb, the day of love & if you love creative, disabled-led play then this is for you. Touretteshero’s Rebel Play is back & we’ve teamed up with @_TheWhitechapel & incredible new artists for Return Of The Rebels more info in the new year: www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/toure...
Reposted by Touretteshero
We'd like to highlight a podcast episode for Disability History Month from @disabilityarts.bsky.social featuring Cathy Waller and @touretteshero.bsky.social speaking about Access to Work.
Content warning, this podcast contains strong language and references of a sexual nature. tinyurl.com/yj9tzup3
Interview - Podcast ep.73 Disability and… Access to Work
In this episode of Disability and... choreographer and artistic director of Cathy Waller Company, Cathy Waller chats with writer, artist and activist Jess Thom about her recent experience of claiming ...
tinyurl.com
December 12, 2025 at 1:32 PM
We'd like to highlight a podcast episode for Disability History Month from @disabilityarts.bsky.social featuring Cathy Waller and @touretteshero.bsky.social speaking about Access to Work.
Content warning, this podcast contains strong language and references of a sexual nature. tinyurl.com/yj9tzup3
Ten Years ago today Live From Television Centre was broadcast on BBC4 you can still watch the grand finale, orchestrated by my tics and made possible by many incredible people here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... #BringOnTheBiscuits #ILove
BBC Four - On Stage: Live from Television Centre, Broadcast from Biscuitland: The Finale
A surreal and comic musical finale featuring a choir, a brass band and dancing biscuits.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Ten Years ago today Live From Television Centre was broadcast on BBC4 you can still watch the grand finale, orchestrated by my tics and made possible by many incredible people here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... #BringOnTheBiscuits #ILove
It’s Children In Need tomorrow so I’m resharing a piece from a few years ago. I don’t believe that pity is the only way of raising money & I’d like to see CiN working with disabled people to imagine new ways of framing & contextualising our stories: www.touretteshero.com/2021/11/20/w...
What Do Children Need?
Yesterday was BBC Children in Need day. Schools and workplaces held collections in the lead up to an evening extravaganza of celebrity-led TV fundraising. The money raised will fund life-changing work...
www.touretteshero.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:34 AM
It’s Children In Need tomorrow so I’m resharing a piece from a few years ago. I don’t believe that pity is the only way of raising money & I’d like to see CiN working with disabled people to imagine new ways of framing & contextualising our stories: www.touretteshero.com/2021/11/20/w...
What do you get if you cross a 2011 Rihanna song with a cow? Seems the answer for me is a new regular #Tourettes tic! Biscuits have made space for bovines - find out more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/10/24/i...
In A Hopeless Place
For anyone old enough to remember, in 2011 Rihanna found love in a hopeless place. That place, if the video is anything to go by, turned out to be County Down in Northern Ireland. The song, with its c...
www.touretteshero.com
October 28, 2025 at 8:52 PM
What do you get if you cross a 2011 Rihanna song with a cow? Seems the answer for me is a new regular #Tourettes tic! Biscuits have made space for bovines - find out more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/10/24/i...
Great guest blog by our Senior Producer Nisha on Epilepsy & organists. One of the complexities of living with brain conditions is that it's also where so much of who we are is located. Navigating the reality of this can be practically & emotionally complex: www.touretteshero.com/2025/09/01/l...
Living with the Organist – Nisha Oza
If living with Tourettes has taught me one thing it’s that brains are incredibly complex and that medical understandings of neurological conditions and the reality of living with them can often feel q...
www.touretteshero.com
October 3, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Great guest blog by our Senior Producer Nisha on Epilepsy & organists. One of the complexities of living with brain conditions is that it's also where so much of who we are is located. Navigating the reality of this can be practically & emotionally complex: www.touretteshero.com/2025/09/01/l...
We're planning to reprint our welcome pack for children with #Tourettes & are adding a letter for siblings. If you're a person with tics, their sibling, or parent/carer please complete a short survey & help us make the letter as useful as possible: www.touretteshero.com/safe/2025/10...
Siblings Letter – Your Help Needed
Last year we launched the Touretteshero Welcome Pack, a set of artist designed letters that we provide free to children who are newly diagnosed with tics or Tourettes, and their families. The welcome ...
www.touretteshero.com
October 2, 2025 at 12:21 PM
We're planning to reprint our welcome pack for children with #Tourettes & are adding a letter for siblings. If you're a person with tics, their sibling, or parent/carer please complete a short survey & help us make the letter as useful as possible: www.touretteshero.com/safe/2025/10...
Our Practical Intervention fund's back! This time with a Mobility focus, we can't provide actual mobility aids but we have 8 great items we can gift to disabled people who aren't able to buy them. Simple application process, more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/08/12/p... closes 03/09/25
Practical Intervention Fund – Mobility Edition
It’s been four years since we launched our Practical Intervention Fund (PIF). The fund enables disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to experiment with different items which can support their wellb...
www.touretteshero.com
August 15, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Our Practical Intervention fund's back! This time with a Mobility focus, we can't provide actual mobility aids but we have 8 great items we can gift to disabled people who aren't able to buy them. Simple application process, more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/08/12/p... closes 03/09/25
I've not been able to do my job for the last 3 months because of a DWP decision to cut my #AccessToWork support. This week I received a letter reinstating my support, while this is good news for me there are many others still affected by cuts & delays touretteshero.com/safe/2025/07... 1/2
We Are Not Disposable
A couple of weeks ago some colleagues and I gathered round a phone in the Touretteshero office to speak to my newly allocated caseworker from the Department for Work and Pensions about my Access to Wo...
touretteshero.com
August 1, 2025 at 9:24 AM
I've not been able to do my job for the last 3 months because of a DWP decision to cut my #AccessToWork support. This week I received a letter reinstating my support, while this is good news for me there are many others still affected by cuts & delays touretteshero.com/safe/2025/07... 1/2
An important article by Andrew Miller in @ArtsPro please read and share: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea... #ProtectAtW #TakingThePip
Benefit reforms risk pushing disabled creatives back to the margins - Arts Professional
Without equitable access to life enhancing benefits, disabled people's participation in culture is severely limited, writes the UK's arts access champion Andrew Miller.
www.artsprofessional.co.uk
July 11, 2025 at 9:00 AM
An important article by Andrew Miller in @ArtsPro please read and share: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea... #ProtectAtW #TakingThePip
Reposted by Touretteshero
I’m so shocked this is happening, in 21st century Britain, under a Labour govt. - the words say “get people working “ the policies are causing the complete opposite!
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/m...
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed?
Shortly before my emergency pacemaker operation at the end of March, I had a meeting with a couple of my colleagues to talk about what should happen to our company if I didn’t survive the procedure. T...
www.touretteshero.com
June 30, 2025 at 8:53 PM
I’m so shocked this is happening, in 21st century Britain, under a Labour govt. - the words say “get people working “ the policies are causing the complete opposite!
Reposted by Touretteshero
I don't know Jess personally, but for pretty much the entire time I've been working professionally she has been widely regarded as a valued and respected figure in the British theatre sector. That it has taken a Labour government to force her out of work is an indelible mark of shame.
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/m...
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed?
Shortly before my emergency pacemaker operation at the end of March, I had a meeting with a couple of my colleagues to talk about what should happen to our company if I didn’t survive the procedure. T...
www.touretteshero.com
June 30, 2025 at 8:16 PM
I don't know Jess personally, but for pretty much the entire time I've been working professionally she has been widely regarded as a valued and respected figure in the British theatre sector. That it has taken a Labour government to force her out of work is an indelible mark of shame.
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/m...
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed?
Shortly before my emergency pacemaker operation at the end of March, I had a meeting with a couple of my colleagues to talk about what should happen to our company if I didn’t survive the procedure. T...
www.touretteshero.com
June 30, 2025 at 7:33 PM
My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/m...
Reposted by Touretteshero
Channel 4 news interviewing Jess Thom who cannot continue working due to cuts in Access to Work funding.
It was Jess’ organisation, @touretteshero.bsky.social that enabled my learning disabled son, to perform at the Southbank in London.
The cuts in support for #disabled people must stop.
It was Jess’ organisation, @touretteshero.bsky.social that enabled my learning disabled son, to perform at the Southbank in London.
The cuts in support for #disabled people must stop.
June 30, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Channel 4 news interviewing Jess Thom who cannot continue working due to cuts in Access to Work funding.
It was Jess’ organisation, @touretteshero.bsky.social that enabled my learning disabled son, to perform at the Southbank in London.
The cuts in support for #disabled people must stop.
It was Jess’ organisation, @touretteshero.bsky.social that enabled my learning disabled son, to perform at the Southbank in London.
The cuts in support for #disabled people must stop.
A Tale of Two Pods, offering us two versions of the future, which would you choose? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/25/a...
A Tale of Two Pods
Content Notice: References to genocide and Euthanasia
In 2016 much to my surprise and delight I became a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. This Fellowship from an internationally recognised health re...
www.touretteshero.com
June 28, 2025 at 6:30 PM
A Tale of Two Pods, offering us two versions of the future, which would you choose? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/25/a...
Reposted by Touretteshero
Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/making-all-s...
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/making-all-s...
Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister
A transport minister has told peers that it would be “counter-productive” – and take too long – to draw up rules that would ensure all pilot schemes of self-driving taxis are accessible to disabled…
www.disabilitynewsservice.com
June 26, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/making-all-s...
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/making-all-s...
Sharing this in solidarity with all those who, like me, are deeply worried and concerned about the outcome of the #AssistedDying vote today: www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/l... #TakingThePip #ProtectAtW
Labour’s Pincer Movement
Is it just me or is it feeling a lot like the 1930s all of a sudden? I’m giving myself permission to ask big questions like this in part because I’m not working at the moment. The reason why I’m not d...
www.touretteshero.com
June 20, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Sharing this in solidarity with all those who, like me, are deeply worried and concerned about the outcome of the #AssistedDying vote today: www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/l... #TakingThePip #ProtectAtW
I’ve been vocal about the impact the cuts to my Access To Work support have had on my job. I haven’t explained publicly my biggest fear - I’ve lost 45hrs of support a week and if this isn’t reinstated I’ll have to go back to #SocialCare & #NHS to cover these lost hours 1/3
June 20, 2025 at 9:09 AM
I’ve been vocal about the impact the cuts to my Access To Work support have had on my job. I haven’t explained publicly my biggest fear - I’ve lost 45hrs of support a week and if this isn’t reinstated I’ll have to go back to #SocialCare & #NHS to cover these lost hours 1/3
Reposted by Touretteshero
The only thing preventing Jess from working is Keir Starmer.
My urgent message to Keir Starmer's Labour government about the devastating impact of cuts to #AccessToWork funding for working disabled people. wearebap.co.uk/campaign 1/4 @tomryalls.bsky.social @disabilityarts.bsky.social
June 18, 2025 at 9:29 AM
The only thing preventing Jess from working is Keir Starmer.