On 11 October 2006 In The Picture held the project?s inaugural conference in London. Attended by over 70 delegates from the world of children?s books, libraries and early years? professionals the conference rounded off a successful first year of the three year project.

Chaired by Tara Flood, Director at the Alliance for Inclusive Education, the day began with a selection of thought provoking presentations.

Richard Rieser [Director, Disability Equality in Education] set the historical context and examined the traditional representations of disabled people in literature. Richard previously chaired the 1995 Invisible Children Conference from which this project takes its lead.

Laurence Anholt, well known as a children?s author and illustrator, then gave delegates his views in an inspiring and passionate presentation. He said the children?s book world had reached an ?of course? moment in time: ?of course we should be including disabled children; of course we should reflect the real world ? this is so obvious?.

The conference offered a platform for key people from the children?s book world such as Wendy Cooling [Bookstart], Alex Strick [Booktrust] and Carole Wolstenholme [Lancashire County Library and Information Service]. As they showcased their research and experiences they each reflected on the increasing market for inclusive books and conveyed their passion about including disabled children, right from the start of their lives.

Dr Nicole Matthews [Liverpool John Moores University] told the conference about the stories strand of the In The Picture project and the impact it had had on the students and families involved. Read more about the stories project here.

Delegates then had the choice of workshops. They could find out more about the stories work and meet parents and their writing facilitator, or they could learn more about the Roald Dahl Foundation Quentin Blake Award research into children?s views of disability in books with Zara Todd and Alex Strick. Both workshops were buzzing and had to be encouraged to stop for lunch.

The day closed with a lively panel discussion giving delegates the opportunity to raise issues and reflect on the days proceedings. Lively it was too! Everyone at the conference said how enthused they felt after the content of the day, how they hoped to carry this forward into their work as authors, illustrators and publishers and to influence colleagues to do the same. There was potential to develop information sharing interest groups and delegates were asked to continue using the website to help the project evolve and to promote the project in their work.

Finally delegates expressed frustration at not reaching all publishers. It was agreed to move the issues forward by writing to publishers not present with the conference report in order to share the conference?s vision and at the same time provide additional information about the new legal obligations to provide inclusive books.

A full conference report is available contact us if you would like to receive a copy.

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