Pat Charlesworth's Speech for the Launch of LDE

Pat Charlesworth is an experienced self-advocate, lifetime member of Learning Disability England and member of the LDE steering group. This is the speech that Pat gave at the launch of Learning Disability England. 

I am a person with a Learning Disability, I am a self-advocate with Hackney People First and I am on the steering group for Learning Disability England.
   
It is very important for People with a Learning Disability as they are the experts by experience so they must lead, but with support - that is where organisations and families come in.

And parents are a very important part of that as they know their son or daughter better than anyone else so if everyone comes together it can work.

Learning Disability England is important for self-advocates because our voice is very important.

We are the experts.

Why should Academics support Learning Disability England?

This post was first published on the Housing & Support Alliance blog. 

Jan Walmsley writes about why academics want to support Learning Disability England and how they can help people with learning disabilities and families change things for the better.

Back in 2015, I answered a call Simon Duffy put out challenging academics to rally round the Learning Disability Alliance. I offered to help. It has taken a lot longer than I thought possible, but now we are ready to launch a network of academics to support LDE.

Help us create Learning Disability England!

This post was first published on the Housing & Support Alliance blog. 

Housing & Support Alliance is working with the self-advocacy group People First England to create a new membership organisation, Learning Disability England.

Learning Disability England will bring together three groups: people with learning disabilities, family members and friends, and organisations. We will work on the things that matter to all of us.

We  want  to  create  Learning  Disability  England  because, in the words of self-advocate Gary Bourlet, ‘life for people with learning disabilities in England is not good at the moment’.

Currently  the  voice of  people  with  learning disabilities,  family  members  and  organisations  is  fragmented.  We need to link up all the good work that’s happening across the country and create a voice that’s so powerful it cannot be ignored.

You can read Gary Bourlet’s thoughts on why we’re creating Learning Disability England here.

We’re currently in the middle of a consultation where we’re asking as many people as possible what they want Learning Disability England to be like.

We’ve already got feedback from over 300 people.

The consultation will close at the end of March so there’s just one month left to tell us what you think!

If you’re a person with a learning disability, a family member or friend of someone with a learning disability, or someone who works for an organisation that works with people with learning disabilities then we want to talk to you!

You can take part in the consultation by completing an online survey that only takes five minutes. There are three different surveys and you can fill out whichever apply to you.

The survey for people with learning disabilities is now closed.

The survey for families and friends is now closed.

The survey for organisations is now closed.

If you’d prefer, you can also take part in the consultation over the phone. You can call Annie on 07780 707 577 or email her at annie.tidbury@housingandsupport.org.uk to arrange a time to speak.

Make sure you don’t miss out on the chance to shape this exciting new organisation!

Learning Disability England Mission & Vision

On October 13th people with learning disabilities, families and organisations came together to talk about building a new membership organisation, Learning Disability England; an organisation that we think could create real change for people with learning disabilities and their families. You can read more about that day here.

One of the things we did on October 13th was think about what the vision and mission of Learning Disability England could be.

A vision is where an organisation wants to get to in the future.

A mission is what an organisation exists to do.

We took all of the ideas that we came up with and drafted a vision and mission. We then went back to everyone who came on October 13th to ask them what they thought. We did this twice and now we’re excited to say that we have the final vision and mission! Here they are:

Our vision is a world in which people with learning disabilities and their families are respected, valued, and live full and equal lives.

 Learning Disability England’s mission is to:

• Bring together the power of people with learning disabilities, their families and organisations. 
• Campaign on the things that matter to us and create change. 
• Make sure that people with learning disabilities and their families are heard; in the media, in politics and in our communities. 
• Be led by people with learning disabilities in partnership with families, supporters and allies. 
• Provide advice and support to members.

We’re really happy with this vision and mission and we hope you like it too. We like it because it’s simple, accessible and most importantly of all we like it because it was written by people with learning disabilities, families and organisations all working together.

The next stage of creating Learning Disability England is the consultation. We’re going to be starting the consultation process this week and we’re going to be speaking to lots of different people about our ideas for Learning Disability England. The consultation will close in March and by then we hope to know just exactly what people want from the new organisation and how they want it to work for them.

If you want to be involved in the consultation or if you have any questions about Learning Disability England, get in touch with Annie at annie.tidbury@housingandsupport.org.uk.

October 13th Meeting: Building a New Organisation

This post was first published on the Housing & Support Alliance blog. 

Here are some thoughts about our meeting on 13th October 2015. We came together with self-advocates, family members and organisations to discuss forming a new learning disability membership organisation.

“This was a new beginning and we achieved quite a bit. The workshops went very well and hopefully we’ll get even more people involved in our new Learning Disability membership organisation. We know things are bad out there so it would be great for all of us to work together rather than separately.” – Gary Bourlet

A big thank you to all our members, colleagues and friends that came along on October 13th to think about what we want to achieve with our new membership organisation. It felt like we took the first small steps to making this happen, but those steps felt strong. The day was fun but also had a seriousness and purposefulness that showed that we all meant business.

The timing could not be better;

The day took place at the same time as the LBinquest was happening and we witnessed an in-depth account of poor service provision and neglect that ultimately led to the death of a young man with learning disabilities;

It took place at the same time a group of parents were meeting the care minister, begging for their young people to be let out of ATUs;

It took place the week after we found out that there are still the same number of people living in ATUs as when the Winterbourne View scandal broke because there are still not enough services to keep people in their communities;

It took place the same week that the Care Quality Commission launched a report that linked poor care services with the government austerity drive;

And it took place the same week that the United Nations launched an investigation into the UK government for breaching the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People.

We need to come together now more than ever. Of course there is also much out there to celebrate and things have definitely changed for the better since Valuing People, but we cannot ignore the fact that things are not good in England for people with learning disabilities right now.

Karen Flood and Rob Greig had strong messages; we cannot continue to allow people with learning disabilities and families to be treated badly, we can no longer afford to be complacent and we can’t continue to work in isolation or compete with each other. We have learned from history that things can change when we all pull together.

James, Beth & Jill from Brandon Trust showed us a way we can really listen to people by bringing everyone’s voice together and making big plans from that. We can learn from them and think about how we can do the same with thousands of people.

In the afternoon you took part in workshops which thought about what our vision would be and what we want to achieve as a new membership organisation. Thank you to all the facilitators: Paula Edmonson, Marianne Selby Boothroyd, James Kelley, Beth Richards, Jill Corbyn, Sarah Maguire and May Lee.

Self advocates, families and organisations all had a different take on what they want but also shared many themes. Power was something that came up a lot – everyone wants to make sure that people with learning disabilities and their families has power in this new organisation. All of the groups also talked a lot about bringing people together and the fact that we’re much stronger when we work together.

It was particularly exciting to see, meet and hear self advocates with clear and strong voices, and families with passion (!) and energy. The day brought people and families together along with those organisations that are committed to people with learning disabilities having good lives. Thanks to initial funding and support from members; Advance, Aldingbourne Trust, Avenues Trust, Brandon Trust, Certitude, Choice Support, CMG, Dimensions, Keyring, Macintyre Charity, Paradigm, RLO, United Response, 3Cs along with our partners and friends that have come on board, Inclusion North, NDTi, Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities and BILD.

The last thing we did was ask everyone to sum up how they felt about the day. Here’s what you said:

Thank-you all, we look forward to going on this journey with you.

People First England and Housing & Support Alliance