We are delighted to announce plans to offer a new resource pack to schools. In the first instance this will focus on better including disabled and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) children & young people, aiming to help all feel welcome, visible and respected in their local school.

The new resource pack has, for now, the working title “Give Me A Chance!” and will be developed in collaboration with staff and pupils in schools. We anticipate that it will include fact sheets, advice and helpful tips, suggestions for awareness-raising activities and examples of good practice. Materials provided will be useful for school displays, assemblies, peer mentoring, school council, curriculum planning, classroom organisation, use of other school spaces, staff training and whole school development.

We have secured funding to work with Bristol and London schools to create this new resource. Our fundraising challenge is not over yet, but we look forward to launching this project in the coming weeks.

This is an open invitation for schools to express an interest in taking part in this project. We are looking for five schools in Bristol and five in London willing to share their experiences and take an active role in generating resource materials. If your school has a strong track record of promoting disability equality or LGBT equality, or both, please speak to your colleagues and consider nominating your school. We will ask for a named person in each school to be the main contact, but hope that the whole school community will become involved in project activities.

We plan to bring together representatives of the nominated schools in early 2014 to confirm the outline of the resource pack and agree a manageable workplan. We will then work with these schools for the remainder of the school year and invite other stakeholder organisations working towards disability and LGBT equality to become involved in this process too. We anticipate launching the new resource this time next year, if not before.

Other schools are also welcome to contribute, by sharing with us their ideas and examples of what has worked well for them.

Please feel free to contact us through facebook (www.facebook.com/csie.uk), twitter (www.twitter.com/csie_uk), or email (admin@csie.org.uk) to ask any questions or to nominate your school. We look forward to hearing from you soon!