Our Story

Cerebral Palsy affects 130,000 adults in the UK. It presents in childhood, and at that stage, is rightly given coordinated care. Then at 18, you are no longer under paediatric services, and the support structure disappears. Cerebral Palsy is a lifelong condition, yet the way healthcare is provided to adults with CP is as if the condition has miraculously disappeared.

This frustration hit Emma Livingstone hard when she was recovering from hip surgery in 2016. Emma had seen a significant decline in her mobility in her late 30’s which had led to several surgeries and her having to give up work.

She couldn’t understand why support for adults with Cerebral Palsy was so threadbare, and uncoordinated. That frustration expressed itself in a blog post titled “From Complainer to Campaigner” where she started to reach out to the medical and CP communities, and began setting an agenda for changing this.

In 2018, Emma joined up with Miriam Creeger, her physiotherapist, to found a charity to campaign for better support and services and give a voice to the adult Cerebral Palsy community. This was first called Adult Cerebral Palsy Hub, and later renamed Up – The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement,

Now Up is growing its ranks in the Cerebral Palsy community, making waves in Parliament and getting the voice of the CP community heard. We invite you to join us.

This what we aim to do:

Raise awareness

  • among adults with Cerebral Palsy, and their families, about the options they have, and what we all need to do to get the support we need to live our best lives.
  • among politicians and policy-makers about the injustices that people with Cerebral Palsy face, and what they can do about it.
  • among the general public, about what life is like for people with Cerebral Palsy, and how they can help.

Educate the medical profession so they can give informed advice, and also be aware of where they can draw on additional resources of information.

Build community so that we adults with Cerebral Palsy can support each other, learn from each other, gain hope from each other, and add strength to each other so that our voices are heard.

Campaign to bring real force to the arguments we make, and to insist on change. We are no longer going to take no for an answer.