BEYOND THE BARRIERS - LAUNCH!!!!!

Good morning.

The Spartacus team have been working for three years on research into ESA, WCAs, the Work Programme and employment for sick and disabled people.

Today, we launch Beyond the Barriers, the most comprehensive report to date on how the system currently fails, but more importantly what we need to do to improve it.

You can read the report 

HERE

You can read the press release

HERE 

Beyond the Barriers aims to start an enormous conversation about what should replace ESA. People will be taking part in it across the political spectrum, all around the internet.

As we launch, experts from the disability community will be giving evidence on the failures of ESA to the Work and Pensions Committee live on Parliament TV You can watch and share the link 

HERE

If you want to get involved, we've provided the following tools to help :

TWITTER

Starting from now you can follow the new Beyond the Barriers @spartacusreport on Twitter. The account will have news, updates and links throughout the day, so do keep an eye on it as a central info source

The hashtag is #BeyondBarriers 

Tweets start NOW!!!!

The next slot will be 12 noon, then 2pm, then 4 pm (Thats 1200 hrs, 1400hrs and 1600 hrs for those with a military strategy!)

Here are some tweets you might like to use : 

BREAKING: from #Spartacus : groundbreaking report into disability

benefit flaws - and how to fix them. #BeyondBarriers http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

BREAKING: Major new report by #Spartacus "important contribution" to
disability debate (Anne Begg) #BeyondBarriers http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

#Spartacus team shows a way 'beyond the
barriers' of current disability support #BeyondBarriers http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

"If you read one policy or political document this week it ought to be
#BeyondBarriers" @LabourList http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

Major new report by disabled ppl shows policymakers how to
fix failing disability benefit system #BeyondBarriers http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

WATCH! Parliament confirm #BeyondBarriers report findings LIVE!! http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=15297 http://bit.ly/R2hD2k

We hope to have staged links available, which will link to the case histories you wrote for us on the Beyond the Barriers blog at http://beyondthebarriersspartacus.blogspot.co.uk/,  explaining how benefits or support have helped you to cope, and even to move on. Please visit the blog and add comments

Facebook Follow the WeAre Spartacus page for updates and links https://www.facebook.com/weare.spartacus.1?fref=ts

Local Media

We have a template letter out that you can send to your local paper, or to a National if you wish. You can view, copy and paste the template from 

HERE 

Contact your MP

We have a template that you can send to your MP - it can be found 

HERE 

Please  feel free to amend it or write your own :-) Personal letters are better but any letter is better than none ;)

You can find your MP here; http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ or here; https://www.writetothem.com/

Internet Blogs

There will be articles and blogs all over the internet - we will try and tweet and Facebook the locations for you as soon as we are aware of them.

We also have our own blog site just for this report. On that site you can see the whole report and supporting work.

You can find it here; 

http://beyondthebarriersspartacus.blogspot.co.uk/