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Jane Susan Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, DBE (born 1959) is a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). She also serves as Chair of the Disability Committee which will lead on the EHRC Disability Programme. She was the former Chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). She was Commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission until it was wound up in October 2007.

Early life

Campbell grew up in New Malden, in south-west London. Her father, Ron, was a heating engineer and her mother, Jesse, was a shop assistant. When she was nine years of age, she and her 14-year-old sister, Sharon, moved with the family to a 1930–40s house in Wendover Drive.

At the age of nine months Campbell did not have the strength in her neck muscles to hold her head up, and exhibited little movement by the age of one year. Her mother consulted the family doctor who referred her to the local Kingston Hospital. She was subsequently referred to Great Ormond Street Hospital where she was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy and given a prognosis that she would not live to reach the age of two years; however, it was her younger sister, Sally, who died of the same disease before that age. The family was not given much support from hospitals or other services, as was generally typical at that time. As a child she was prone to getting severe chest infections, which occurred two or three times per year, sometimes requiring hospitalization.

Education

Campbell went to a segregated school for disabled children where academic achievement was not the top priority. Her best friend, who had a hole in the heart, died at the age of 13 years. She left school at the age of 16 years with no qualifications, and hardly able to read or write, but she nevertheless regarded herself as being quite intelligent. In 1975 she joined Hereward College, Tile Hill, Coventry; a special college for disabled students where there was an academic environment, and where she was generally able to enjoy the life-style of an ordinary teenager. Whilst there she gained six O-levels and three A-levels within three years. From Coventry she went to Hatfield Polytechnic, and then took an MA on Sylvia Pankhurst at Sussex.

Career

In 1996 Campbell co-founded and directed the National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) where she worked for six years before being appointed by the Minister for Social Care to chair SCIE. She is an active leader in the social care field and a campaigner and adviser for disability reforms.

As chair at the British Council of Disabled People and co-director at NCIL, Campbell saw these organisations through pioneering work in the field of independent living, civil rights, peer counselling and equal opportunities. In 1996 she co-authored a book entitled Disability Politics, and was created a Dame in the Queen's 2001 birthday honours.

In 2003, Campbell was awarded an honorary doctorate in law from Bristol University and another in social sciences from Sheffield Hallam University. Currently, she is exploring the notion of a human rights perspective of social care.

In February 2007, it was announced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission that she would be made a life peer and would sit as a crossbencher. Her peerage was gazetted as "Baroness Campbell of Surbiton" (a district within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames) on 30 March 2007.

Personal life

Campbell met her first husband, Graham Ingleson, at Hereward College, whom she married when she was 27 years old. He was a haemophiliac, and six weeks before the wedding they discovered that he had contracted HIV from a blood transfusion, and later died. She currently lives in the Kingston borough district of Tolworth, with her second husband Roger Symes, a businessman.

Because of her weakness Campbell requires help to do almost everything, and needs a ventilator to help her breathe at night. She uses an electrically-powered wheelchair and has a computer on which she types with one finger. She receives a direct payment from the local authority for her care needs, which enables her to employ five female carers to help her with the routine activities of daily living.

References

1. ^ "The House I Grew Up In, with Baroness Campbell as participant". The House I Grew Up In. 2009-09-01. BBC. BBC Radio 4. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
2. ^ Birkett, Dea (11 July 2009). "I'm bossy. I'm ambitious. I love ideas. And I love life: Dea Birkett meets Jane Campbell, a life peer with spinal muscular atrophy". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 September 2009. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

• http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/our-job/who-we-are/the-team/baroness-jane-campbell-of-surbiton-dbe/
• http://www.livingwithdignity.info

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• Living people
• British social welfare officials
• Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• Female life peers
• Cross bench life peers
• People's peers
• Politicians with physical disabilities
• Disability rights activists
• 1959 births