Opinion: Good outcomes don't need to be visible

Dan is now 33, but he is as much in need of targeted support as some individuals half his age.

I have written about Dan before. Dan is the wheelchair-bound young man with cerebral palsy who first came to my youth centre at the age of 18, having never mixed outside a special needs environment. One of my part-time colleagues struck up a special relationship with Dan, and ferried him back and forth from home to the youth centre when the weather was bad.

We engaged Dan in activities at the centre and took him away on weekends.

By his mid-20s, he had become involved in disability rights campaigning and was something of a thorn in the local council's side - publicising uneven paving slabs, alerting the media to buildings that had no wheelchair access, and so on.