THE Crediton-based Turning Tides Project has been speaking to BBC Radio Devon about how it helps people with learning disabilities and autism on the 10th anniversary of its founding.

A community interest company, it seeks to provide “equal access to music, the arts and life”, and offers one-to-one and shared support services, creative sessions, training and evaluation services, events catering and more. It also runs the Crediton Station Tea Rooms.

The Turning Tides Project has produced 10 short episodes with BBC Radio Devon in total, in which members talk about themes including respect, inclusion and difference.

The first five were broadcast from Monday, December 2 to Friday, December 6. The second five are being broadcast from Monday, December 16 to Friday, December 20.

“The Turning Tides Project exists for all sorts of reasons, but respect was, and is, a big driver,” Director Jane Williams told BBC Radio Devon.

“We set out to demonstrate that we can create a respectful environment in which people can and do.

“There's a coming together of equals and so that only happens if your positive assumption is that the person that you are interacting with is your equal.

“One of the things we talk about is how ordinary rules apply. We don't have different rules for different people because they seem to have different abilities or different ways of communicating.

“Our rules, our principles for being as an organisation apply to everybody all of the time because we all know that we can all do it.

“The Turning Tides Project is a community interest company, a social enterprise. We exist with a social cause.

“What’s most important for us is that we have a social impact, that the work we do makes a difference to the things that we think matter.”

You can listen to all of the episodes by visiting: linktr.ee/TurningTidesCIC.