The National Self-Advocacy Convention
There was 320 people who attended a very full national self -advocacy convention last month that ran through from the 24th-27th February.
It has been run now as The National Self-advocacy convention for the last 2 years.
Before this it was the Northwest Self-advocacy Convention and has been held at Grand Hotel in Blackpool for 17 years.
It was very exciting for everyone who came and was 3 full days of fun. I must say it gets more interesting and fun every year.
The team who organised it were the Pathways / North West Development Team (NWDT).
The conference, you cannot fault, it was a chance for all groups to network. There was plenty of workshops and a chance to look at big issues and discuss important topics and our vision for 2030.
The conference opened with a lot of music as you approached the stage. Vicky Buckingham got people exercising in her Zumba class and then there was Dance Syndrome and Disco.
There was also a Gala night on Wednesday which had a magician doing tricks. The only negative thing I will say is I think we may be in need of a bigger venue for next year! It would be great to see the convention grow even bigger than it already has.
Lasty, well done and thank you to everyone who worked on organising the conference, those who spoke or ran workshops and of course everyone who attended. Without you this brilliant event would not be able to happen every year.
By Gary Bourlet
Solve Sleep-Ins Alliance: MP Response and Survey
In October, the Solve Sleep-Ins Alliance wrote an open letter to ministers as we are worried that essential overnight social care support services are at risk. This is because the government hasn’t offered enough guidance to help people understand what to expect, or do about the decision that staff who work sleep-in shifts don’t need to be paid the national minimum wage. The letter specifically asked for an explanation about how staff should be paid for sleep-ins and how this will be funded by commissioners. You can read the full letter here.
MP Kelly Tolhurst responded to the letter. You can read her letter in full here. The letter recognised the current situation around sleep-ins as an issue. A key message being that the Department of Health and Social Care is telling local authorities and commissioners they should not be using the Court of Appeals judgement as a chance to radically change their fee-paying practices.
We know this is an issue that matter to all our members. As part of our support for the Alliance we have created a survey to collect the views of Personal Budget holders, people who use Direct Payments and families. We are interested in how the issues around sleep ins are affecting you, your family and staff; especially if funding you receive for sleep-ins has changed.
We would appreciate you taking the time to help us gather evidence to support the alliances’ work. The survey should only take a few minutes to complete.
Take part in the survey here.
Our work on housing choices includes hosting a post with JMS Trust that helps people set up their new home.
Find out more about JMS trust here
We are working on questions about
- Supported Living and being safe
- Social Housing and Supported Housing
This includes trying to understand the numbers of unexpected deaths and incidents reported to CQC by providers and shared in the BBC file on 4 programme in February 2019.
We have written a report on what we have found out so far and are doing next
You can read the July 2019 update here
There is an easy read summary at the start of the report
There is also a blog by Kevin from L’Arche on what they changed after Joe Ulleri died in hospital. You can read that here
Thank you to all the members so far who have shared information, ideas or examples from their work
If you want to share anything or tell us what you do after things go wrong in a service or what you want to see services do please get in touch
Blog by Jayne Knight, Learning Disability England member
“REACH – constantly aspire for better” Reflections on Supported Living today
Read here
#right2home is a campaign to keep the Whorlton Hall scandal on the political agenda, and press the government to act on its promises.
It is led by self advocates and family campaigners.
We know that more than 2,000 adults and children are still in secure mental health units.
Since the coronavirus lockdown started, people in secure units may not have seen advocates or family carers. We are worried about their welfare.
The campaign is building up to 5 days of action on from 18th to 22nd May, – they want people to join in
Building on earlier campaigns, #right2home is co-run by people with learning disabilities and campaigners.
You can read more about the campaign here
Learning Disability England is supporting the campaign
You can follow the campaign on twitter and facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/right2homeUK/
Influencing funding decisions and understanding how it affects peoples lives
Universal Credit
Universal Credit affects learning disabled people more than other groups of people. We’ve been worried that people with learning disabilities haven’t been included when talking about those effects.
We’ve been talking to members about how universal credit has affected them.
We’ve started working with others to make sure people voices are heard and support is accessible and inclusive.
You can read our full report here.
Sleep in payments
We have started this work as part of the #Solvesleepins Alliance
#SolveSleepIns September 2019 Update
HMRC Sleep-in Guidance
HMRC have made this 10 minute webinar offering guidance on the rate of pay given to staff who work sleep-in shifts. The webinar
- Explains the Court of Appeal decision in the Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake case
- Presents case studies to help you understand how sleep-in shifts should be classed and paid for in accordance with the law.
Please click here to view video
