Stephen McCue
 I founded Dyslexia Pathways Community Interest Company in 2009. I am dyslexic myself and a qualified dyslexia and inclusion specialist. I am very passionate about dyslexia and dyslexia issues and do not believe it to be a disability. At Dyslexia Pathways CIC we promote a very positive and social model of dyslexia profile. It is society that disables many dyslexics not dyslexia itself.
If anyone had told me on the day I left school in 1974 that I would be running my own company and be a dyslexia specialist I would have laughed loudly in their face. Like most dyslexics I struggled at school. As a result I didn’t pass any exams. Well I say I didn’t pass, I don’t really know how I did because I never opened the envelope my results came in.
On leaving school I went through a number of manual labour jobs from bagging sand in a builder’s merchants to being a tree surgeon. But like many dyslexics I had a creative talent which was for music. So I learned to play the bass guitar and was a musician for the next 20 years
In 1987 I decided to go back to school full time and see if I could get myself educated. Little did I know at the time where that would take me. Eight years later I left full time education with an honours degree and inclusive education specialist teaching diploma. It was during this time that I discovered I was dyslexic and my passion for all thing dyslexic began
Between 1995 and 2007 I worked as a specialist teacher in a number of different colleges in London. In my last post I managed a dyslexia department at a college for around 8 years.
In 2007 I moved from London back to Scotland where I was born in 1958. It was in 2007 that I decided to leave the teaching profession and do something different. That’s when I founded Dyslexia Paathways CIC. I managed to win two social enterprise awards from Scotland Unltd and First Port. Both of which I have to thank for having the faith in me and my ideas and provide me with funding to get Dyslexia Pathways of the drawing board.
Since I founded the company we have won contracts to supply dyslexia support services to two universities here in Scotland. I have also worked in a voluntary capacity at the Scottish Parliament raising awareness of dyslexia issues.
Carolynn Cruickshank-Gray
I am one of the directors with Dyslexia Pathways CIC. My interest in the organisation goes back to the company's inception when I first met Steve McCue Founder and CEO in the professional role I worked in at that time. I retained an interest in the company even after I moved on from that role, as dyslexia definitely plays a part in my family. Whilst never formally diagnosed with dyslexia I have no doubt that I am dyslexic, as is my daughter and it would now seem my grandchild.
However dyslexia is only a small part of me and I have come to realise that I simply look at things in a different way to non dyslexics which can be a great strength in many of the curve balls life throws at you. As well as being a mother and grandmother, I am also a support carer for young people who are in the transition from a care setting to living independently, whereby they come and live in my home during that period of their lives. I am also a director of Lorkinn Agency CIC set up to provide support to young people who have been corporately parented, or who are high functioning on the autism scale.
All of this keeps me pretty busy but I am now trying to get in touch with my creative side, ( again) and that is why I am so pleased to be part of the Unique Dyslexic project.
For all you dyslexics out there I would like to share one of my favourite quotes which might just strike a chord with you.
"I always feel parallel parked in a horizontal universe"
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