Transcript East Midlands Rep - National Forum of people with learning

East Midlands regional update
Clare Dorothy Crawford
National Forum 24th 25th June 2014
Regional Forum 7th May 2014
We looked at 2 things in this meeting:
Advocacy
What has happened since Winterbourne View
In the morning we talked about advocacy.
We had a presentation on what advocacy is
and the different types of advocacy.
We told everyone about the different
organisations that provide advocacy in the East
Midlands and how to contact them. This
information is on our regional page of the
National Forum website.
There are not many local self-advocacy
organisation in our area. Most advocacy is
provided by large nation organisations.
We did some role plays to help people
understand:
What advocacy is
How advocates can help
What it means to be able to speak up
Nearly everyone at our meeting had some
contact with advocacy and self advocacy
groups. People think advocacy is important.
In the Afternoon Angela Ellis from the Joint
Improvement Programme came to talk to us.
She told us about the work that has been
done since Winterbourne View.
The winterbourne view Joint Improvement
Programme was set up to do some work on
making lives better for people in hospitals
and assessment and treatment units.
Angela talked about everyone working
together to make change happen. Someone
from our region who has had experience of
being sectioned has agreed to do some
work with Angela.
Angela gave us the list of questions to
ask in our local areas for example at our
Partnership Boards and health working
groups.
These are the question the Nation Forum
had worked on at the meeting in April.
We have passed this information on to
our local contacts.
Some Things happening in our region
Northamptonshire
They are recruiting 7 Local Champions and 1 Younger
Peoples Champion for the Partnership Board The
Champions are self advocates who will be paid for the
work they do.
Other jobs people have been supported to get include
Quality Checkers, a project worker at Northampton
Hospital and an admin job in the Learning disability
Partnership Board office.
Nottinghamshire Nottingham City
An information day for people with learning disabilities
has been organised by the Health groups with SeeAbility
about eye care.
Lincolnshire The Partnership Board held an
event to celebrate Learning Disability Week
185 people came to share with each other.
Everyone had fun and enjoyed the day.
Lincolnshire County council are looking at who
will provide advocacy services from April 2015.
Leicester City Sir Clive Loader the police and
crime commissioner visited the “We Think
Group” to talk about hate and mate crime. The
group said this was useful and they hope to do
some work with him in future. There was an
article in the local paper.
Work on who will provide advocacy from April
2015 still continues.