A campaigner born with special needs says government ministers must ‘walk in our shoes’ before drawing up legislation that impacts the lives of people with learning disabilities.

Employment, housing, transport and education are all areas where ministerial consultation falls short, says Mencap’s Ciara Lawrence.

As Engagement Lead at the charity, her role is to broaden engagement with Mencap’s Five Year Plan, which seeks to create a better environment for learning disabilities in the UK.

But with her job, Ciara’s Pink Sparkle Celebrity Podcast, which confounds expectations about learning disabilities and raises awareness, as well as her links with at least six charities, Ciara seems barely to have time to draw breath.

“I have found my voice and so I speak up for me – and for others. I preach inclusion. This work is an amazing honour,” she said.

Her work with Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and The Eve Appeal promote cervical screening among women with learning disabilities – something Ciara too struggled with. She is patron of include.com for individuals with communication difficulties and the Lancashire charity, DanceSyndrome. Two further learning disability charities Ciara helps are near her home in Surrey.

Her own disabilities were only diagnosed at the age of ten, when an educational psychologist told her parents she was neither naughty nor stupid, but needed support and extra time to learn.

She flourished at her special needs residential school, and gained four GCSEs, but it was only when she left at 16 and looked for work that the realities of life with a learning disability set in.

“There are one and a half million people in the UK with learning disabilities. We don’t fit into the world, but society needs to change to make sure we do.”

Ciara believes the government needs to listen more closely. “When ministers make big decisions, they must meet people like me and listen to our life stories. Until they have walked in our shoes, they don’t understand what living with a learning disability really means,” she says.

While Ciara is delighted that learning disability and autism training became compulsory for health and social care staff earlier this month, she says there is still more to do.

One bugbear is the lack of awareness about benefits. These must be publicised far more, she says.

Ciara’s disabilities affect how she picks up new information, and has learned coping mechanisms like taking a five-minute break, and asking for information by email, rather than face-to-face to give her more time to process it.

“People do need to explain things in an easy way but taking extra time to understand does not mean I cannot achieve.”