Radical Visions provides practical assistance to fellow citizens, families, organisations and wider society to promote and exercise the values of inclusion.
Radical Visions is a human services consultancy service offered by its Directors, Frances Brown and John Dalrymple. For over 20 years we have been demonstrating that people with disabilities can leave institutions and move directly to their own homes, where they can begin to lead lives of true citizenship.
Frances was Director of the ground-breaking Inclusion Glasgow and John not only led hospital closure programmes, but also developed a new organisation Support for Ordinary Living (SOL). We also jointly led the first stage of the development of In Control Scotland, championing self-directed support.
After many roles working in the NHS, including working as a clinical nurse specialist for rehabilitation in Woodilee Hospital Glasgow where she was involved in working alongside the voluntary sector to help people leave institutional care, Frances became a senior manager with the Richmond Fellowships Scotland. In this role Frances was part of the person centred planning consortium with Scottish Human Services, one of the first groups of people in Scotland to consider and explore personalisation and person centred approaches.
Joining Inclusion Glasgow in 1996 as Deputy Director Frances shaped the organisation along with its founder Simon Duffy. Inclusion Glasgow works with people and their families to design individualised and creative supports which enable people to take control of the their lives. Everyone Inclusion Glasgow works for has an individual service fund which pays for their support and other things to help them get the life they want. Frances became it’s Executive Director in 1999. Inclusion Glasgow has proved to be an influencing organisation in relation to personalisation and Self Directed Support in Scotland, throughout the United Kingdom and beyond.
Frances has an RMN and RGN qualifications she also has a Masters Degree in Community Care from Glasgow University and a Diploma in Consultancy and Facilitation with the Craighead Institute. She has worked as an associate with Paradigm and worked alongside John Dalrymple as the Development Lead for In Control Scotland for its first 3 years and continues to be an associate for In Control Scotland.
Frances is keen to continue her own learning and to share her experiences of running such a unique organisation often struggling to do so within traditional systems. Frances believes strongly that clear values and organisational behaviours which reflect those values are essential for ensuring that you stay true to the organisation's vision of people being in control of their lives and their supports.
Frances has a 25 year old son David who trained in performing arts and is a tenor; he has been cast in Phantom of the Opera in London and other shows including Sweeny Todd she is a very proud mother. Frances ran her first 10k last year and regularly does ZUMBA which she loves.
Following the completion of an honours degree in English Literature and a post-graduate CQSW, John began his career as a generic social worker in Glasgow and Galashiels. He worked in a variety of roles in the multi-disciplinary Borders learning disability team in the eighties, and in the early nineties was Principal Officer for Learning Disabilities for Strathclyde. Subsequently, while Resettlement Project Manager at Lennox Castle Hospital, he supported Simon Duffy’s work in founding Inclusion Glasgow.
John was the first employee and chief officer of the Grampian based Partnership Housing (now INSPIRE), and in 1998 co-founded Support for Ordinary Living, a supported living organisation working in Lanarkshire. With Simon Duffy and others he was a founder of ALTRUM, and sits on the Board of In Control Scotland, having previously been seconded to work with Frances Brown as its Joint Development Team Leader. John contributed to the Scottish review of learning disability services, The Same As You? (2000), and was instrumental in establishing Values Into Action Scotland as an independent Scottish agency in 2007.
John lives in Biggar, South Lanarkshire, with his wife Moira, and is keen on Hearts, jazz and Scottish self direction. His daughter Emma, is a recent law graduate and works for Childline Aberdeen.