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What Rachael, one of our Membership and Engagement leads, has been up to this week.
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On Tuesday I travelled down to Bristol to connect with southern members and partners at the Big Connect, a More Than A Provider event.
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More than a Provider is collaborative of support providers who support and are taking action toward to Social Care Future’s Vision.
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It was great to see so many members there, including paid support rep Scott!
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In a workshop with United Response and Dimensions we talked about the My Vote, My Voice campaign encouraging people with a learning disability to take part in elections.
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We held a mock election, if only it was that easy to get a government to prioritise social care!
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My second workshop of the day was with Beyond Limits, we heard from Lucy and Doreen about how real person-centred planning makes sure people live a good life.
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Lucy shared her story alongside her sister about how she has spent the last 9 years building a good life after thirteen years in hospital. Lucy shared her life now includes nightclubbing till 4am, babysitting her nieces and nephews and working on the transforming care agenda.
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The final workshop I went to was ran by OpenStoryTellers. Alex challenged us to think about how organisations need to be active allies to people with learning disabilities. Non-disabled allies need to be angry and challenging to ableist systems.
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We need to keep asking ourselves’ what did we do/did the system do that allowed this to happen?’
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The day was full of singing, dancing, art and challenging us all to action.
Paul spent the day creating this great graphic from the discussions:
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If you are interested in connecting with Social Care Futures they have a number of peer support sessions coming up over the next several months, sign up to their newsletter for updates.
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If I didn’t see you there this time, I hope to next time!