Award winner (2025)13th June 2025
For people with a learning disability and/or autism, Mary Woodall can be a true inspiration, advocate and campaigner.
As a member of the self- and peer-advocacy group Campaign 4 Change, Mary helps raise awareness of different issues and initiatives. She has spearheaded campaigns such as #MindYourLanguage, which aims to effectively change the way teams working in social care and professionals address and speak to and about the people they support. Mary also attended the recent Day of Action march in Westminster in support of Providers Unite to demonstrate against welfare changes.
As a founder and co-chair of Unity, she works in partnership with other teams within the Achieve Together organisation as experts by experience.
She regularly meets with their executive team, the CEO and their Board to discuss initiatives with the company, presenting regularly at meetings and conferences, being a regular contributor to the Wheel of Engagement podcast.
Mary’s presence on the Representative Body of Learning Disability England (LDE) is an important one. She is a representative for self-advocates, within this role, as part of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Social Care Lived Experience Group. As a result, Mary meets politicians to raise their awareness of different key issues for people drawing on social care.
Some recent examples of Marys work would be, alongside her APPG colleagues, delivering a petition to Number 10 Downing Street to make elections accessible to all, a campaign called my Vote My Voice. She also met with Stephen Kinnock MP minister for Health and Social Care, and Simone Casey, Senior Civil Servant, about the Health and Social Care Commission.
She has also met with a number of MPs in Parliament to get them to support initiatives which will improve the lives of people with learning disabilities and autistic people.
In sharing her lived experience, Mary was involved in the launch of Care England’s Sector Pulse Check, contributing a written interview and video.
Through everything she does, she is a staunch advocate for those who may struggle to speak up for themselves, fearlessly standing up for herself and others.
I love being a co-chair of Unity, and member of Learning Disability England and APPG, fighting for the rights of people who have a disability. It means a lot to me to be part of these awards as I’ve never had this experience, and it means a lot to be a winner as it shows my self-advocacy work hasn’t gone unappreciated
Mary Woodall