In September the Rep Body held 3 sessions to meet members.  

It was great to meet people from across the membership and have a chance to hear about the issues that are important.  

We wanted to share an update about what we heard in those meetings and what actions we are taking from that. 

North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council are carrying out a housing needs assessment to understand what housing needs local people have.

Understanding what is important to local people helps local authorities to plan for the future.

Gary Bourlet, Membership and Engagment Lead for Learning Disability England introduces a new film

Learning Disability England and Speakup Advocacy have been putting together a film called ‘Impact of Advocacy’.

It looks at the changes that have happened since people with a learning disability have felt empowered to speak up for themselves.

It looks into the important history of the self-advocacy movement and speaks to many inspirational people with a learning disability about their stories.

Last week we launched the film as part of Advocacy Awareness Week.

As a figure in the Self-Advocacy movement for over 37 and half years and a co-founder of People First in the UK, I have personally seen the impact it has made over the years.

There is now a date set for the next Annual General Members meeting. 

It is on 3rd December 2024 at 10am

The meeting will be happening online over Zoom.

Gary Bourlet, one of the Membership and Engagement Lead’s at Learning Disability England has been speaking with Mark Brookes about My Vote My Voice.

My Vote My Voice is a campaign developed by United Response, Dimensions, Mencap, Ambitious About Autism and the people who draw on our care and support.

Together they’re campaigning to remove voting barriers and raise awareness about people with learning disabilities and autistic people’s right to vote.

Dr Mark Brookes MBE is Advocacy Lead with Dimensions and helping to lead on their work for the campaign.

Gary speaks to Mark about what the campaign is all about and how you can get involved below.

I’m Mary Woodall and I am a self-advocate and member of Learning Disability England’s representative body.

As part of this work on the rep body I am Learning Disability England’s representative on the Social Care All Party Parliamentary group (APPG) lived experience advisory group.

The lived experience group brings together the voices of people with lived experience to have their say in policy change on adult social care.

For some of the meetings we have been speaking about accessible voting and getting people with learning disabilities involved in politics.

43 organisations joined together to write to the minister about the lack of an accessible version of the consultation on the Oliver McGowan mandatory training code of practice.

The letter was to say it is not acceptable that people with learning disabilities do not have equal information or time to think about and respond to a code of practice on training that is about their lives.

We were asking that they can confirm when it will be available and that they will give an extension for responses so people with learning disabilities can be an equal part of the consultation.

You can read the letter here.

Since we sent the letter we have seen 17 more organisations show their support.

The new version with these updated signatories is here.