Together Type 1 (formerly Our Lives Our Choices Our Voices) recently marked its first anniversary having launched in September 2022, with a £5 million donation from the Steve Morgan Foundation.
The programme is run in partnership with Diabetes UK and brings together young people with type 1 diabetes through the delivery of a UK-wide peer support programme. Today, on World Diabetes Day 2023, we give an insight into what motivated Sally and Steve Morgan to provide this vital funding and support for young people living with type 1.
For other young people living with type 1 diabetes, stories and advice from their peers has the most power to help them feel they can manage their condition and are not facing their challenges alone.
Helping people who live with type 1 find others that they can relate to is vital, as Sally Morgan explains:
“We understand as parents of a boy with type 1 that the most powerful source of support is your peers. There is only so much that other people, who aren’t experiencing living with type 1 day-to-day, can do. If we can reach every young person in the UK out there with type one diabetes and help what can feel quite an isolating condition seem more normal, then that is going to make a difference.”
In October 2023, Young Leader Mike Cox interviewed Steve and Sally Morgan to talk about their motivation for funding Together Type 1.
Youth-led communication
Key to Together Type 1 is its Young Leaders initiative and, at the end of its first year, the programme now has 67 Young Leaders aged between 16 and 25 engaged across the length and breadth of the UK.
These amazing young people are leading on peer support, sharing communications, and also acting as powerful ambassadors for change within the healthcare system, by bringing to the conversation the voice of young people living with type 1. For the wider public, content from these young ambassadors is also helping to combat misconceptions and stigma by driving home the realities of life with type 1.
Creating a legacy
Together Type 1 is now ready to power into year two to deliver dynamic support and lasting change for young people.
“We want to encourage every young person with type 1 to be part of the programme to enrich and to help their lives and – most of all – to know that they are not the only one” – Steve Morgan CBE.
Read more about Together Type 1 and hear from the programme’s Young Leaders here.