The ten guiding principles of In The Picture are rooted in the social model of disability and should be read alongside Scope?s Children?s Charter [538kb PDF].

The principles are also available in an A4 poster format which you can download here [69.2kb PDF]

If you would like to know more about the ten guiding principles you can download the supporting notes. [91kb PDF]

Show your support by signing up to these principles today.

1. Books should be created with all children in mind, for all children to share and enjoy.
2. The point is not that disabled children should be the prime focus of stories or pictures: simply they should be there, a natural feature of every child's landscape.
3. Images of disability should be the norm, in the same way as images of different ethnicities are now the norm.
4. Images of disabled children should be used casually or incidentally, so that disabled children are portrayed playing and doing things alongside their non-disabled peers.
5. Disabled children should be portrayed as ordinary - and as complex - as other children, not one-dimensional.
6. Disabled children are equals and should be portrayed as equals - giving as well as receiving.
7. Disabled children should not be portrayed as objects of curiosity, sensationalised or endowed with superhuman attributes.
8. Stories should not have "happy ever after" plots that make the child?s attitude the problem.
9. It is society?s barriers that can keep disabled children from living full lives. See the social model of disability.
10. We should always remember that disabled children are children first and like all children have hopes and aspirations just like their peers.

Some of these statements are based on materials prepared after the Invisible Children conference, and also from materials produced by The Children?s Society.

Back to Top