Learning Disability

Partnership Board

Meeting Minutes

The theme for our meeting was Good Communication For All

Chaired by Debbie Endersby and Sonia Reed

Held on 7 November 2019

Held at Sovereign Harbour Yacht Club

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019

A list of people who were at our November 2019 meeting. See page 10 for details.

Sonia Reed Co-Chair / Involvement

Matters Team Co-Chair

Debbie Endersby Co-Chair

Graham Oliver Involvement Matters Team

Ruth Mowbray Involvement Matters Team

Tanya Norton Involvement Matters Team

Dominic Steel Involvement Matters Team

Tim Sully Involvement Matters Team

Sarah Gordy Involvement Matters Team

Jeanette Gallivan

-Young

ESCC - Adult Social Care

Fraser Cooper ESCC - Adult Social Care -

Commissioner

Amber Perkin ESCC - Adult Social Care

Teya Beele ESCC - Adult Social Care

Sam Williams ESCC - Adult Social Care

Janice Young Aspens

Richard Lewis ESCC - DPS

Dave Mahon FPLD

Tania Hudson ESCC - Adult Social Care

Sharon Clare Southdown Housing

Association

Andrew Phillips Parchment Trust

Neil Massey DWP

Julie Young DWP

Chloe Apter Pavilion Publishing

Danny Connolly POhWer

Carla Sevens ESCC - Adult Social Care

Angela Hatcher NHS Hastings & Rother CCG

Brian Clifford ESCC - DPS

Claire Cordell Little Gate Farm

Michelle Webb Self Advocate

Kayleigh Hedger Linden Court

Helen Futcher Learning Disabilities DPS

Alan King Self Advocate

Nicole Zeitlin Self Advocate

Chandra

Kugathas

Lifeways

Claire Piper Amaze

Chloe Hannaford Amaze

Kira Mahoney-

Nash

Self Advocate

Philip Jenkins Affinity Trust

Andrea Randall-

Smith

Little Gate Supported

Employment

Emma Ryman ASC CLDT

Melanie Reeve Avenues

Kyla Murphy ESCC - ASC

Karen Wilmshurst Children’s Services

Sandra Bowen Children’s Services

The theme for our November 2019 meeting was Good Communication For All

Agenda Item Page number for minutes

Welcome and introductions 1

Minutes of the last meeting and things

that have happened since then 1

Updates and news from IMT 1 - 4

Getting the message across -

Influencing and informing training 5 - 6

The importance of good

communication 7

Communication: your feedback 8

Makaton Friendly Town 9

Makaton Bingo 9

Any other business 10

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 1

What we talked about at the meeting

Welcome and introductions

Sonia and Debbie welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Minutes of the last meeting and things that have happened since then

Debbie said that the previous minutes were on the East

Sussex Learning Disability website and copies were also

available to take away.

The notes of the previous meeting were agreed.

Update from the Involvement Matters Team

Debbie invited IMT members to tell us what has been

happening since we last met.

Sonia told us that she was a finalist for The Learning Disability

and Autism Leaders’ List 2019, as she had been nominated for

her Outstanding Contribution in the area of Local

Communities!

Sarah told us that she had been nominated for the Best West End Debut Award for her performance in Jellyfish! Sarah also explained that she is going to be involved in more acting projects, including The A Word, which is in its third series.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 2

Update from the Involvement Matters Team

Graham told us that he had been nominated for the Hastings Voluntary Action Volunteer Awards for his dedication to volunteering for Age UK. Ruth read out what had been said about Graham, that he is a key team member at Age UK, and that his singing in the shop is “legendary”!

Dominic shared that he is hoping to attend a resilience event in Blackpool with Culture Shift. Dominic said that he has been to Blackpool before and is looking forward to returning.

Tanya told us that she had recently been to Butlin's, which she enjoyed, and that she has been working towards completing the Pass it On training.

Ruth has been writing a poetry book as park of a group with Compass Community Arts, where she volunteers. Ruth said that she has found this role to be good fun and has made a new group of friends there.

Tim said that he had recently had a good weekend away in Grimsby. He has also been kite-flying, although the weather was a bit too strong sometimes!

Unfortunately, Daniel and Mikey were unable to attend the meeting. We heard from Jeanette that Daniel had been working with the Stay Up Late Campaign, which he will talk about at a future meeting. We also heard that Mikey is part of a second film about his band, Delta 7. The film is being shown as part of the CineCity festival. We watched the trailer for film.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 3

Update from the Involvement Matters Team

Introduction to Learning Disabilities

IMT co-delivered two Introduction to Learning Disabilities sessions as part of National Inclusion Week, 2019.

This year’s theme was ‘Everyday Inclusion: Celebrate and Inspire.

Welcome to Annette!

Sonia introduced IMT’s new Expert by Experience, Annette.

In the Press

IMT representatives have had two articles published in LD Today!

Delta 7 and Sonia’s friendship group have both featured on LD Today’s website.

Pass It On Training

IMT representatives have completed the Pass It On Training Course and have received their certificates from London Southbank University for their achievement.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 4

Update from the Involvement Matters Team

Consultations

IMT acted as the reference group for the development of the Working Age Adult Consultation, helping to ensure that the document was accessible for people with learning disabilities.

You can find an easy read summary of the results here.

Hate Crime

IMT are members of the Hate Crime Advisory Group and met with the Law Commission earlier this year to continue their work with the FPLD on Learning Disability Hate Crime.

Friends Against Scams

IMT have completed the accessible Friends Against Scams training and will be meeting with National Trading Standards and the Safer East Sussex Team to talk about sharing the training with our Scam Charter Partners.

Interviews

Sonia has been involved in interviews with Emma and Lizzie from the Community Learning Disability Team to recruit a new Resource Officer.

Emma thanks Sonia for all of her support with the interviews and said that it really helped.

Tender Process

Mikey, Ruth and Sonia were involved in a care and support tender process.

IMT helped to develop 3 questions. IMT then gave each answer a score, contributing to the decision process of choosing a care and support provider.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 5

Pass It On Training

IMT have been working with Dave Mahon, Project

Manager with the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, as a Pass It On advisory group.

Part of The Pass It On training aims to help people with learning disabilities have a better understanding of what mental health is.

The advisory group has been involved from the start and is helping to develop and deliver the training.

The group aims to make the training as accessible as possible for people with a learning disability.

Sonia and Jeanette delivered the training to IMT representatives. This was a pilot (the first time it had been done).

Dave spoke about how helpful it has been to work with IMT, who have given very useful feedback on the training and how best to deliver it.

Dave spoke about how the project focuses on mental health and coping strategies for dealing with difficult times.

Ruth spoke about some of the extra barriers that people with learning disabilities may face, and how that may impact mental health.

Dave explained that it seems professionals sometimes assume that poor mental health may be a part of the learning disability, and is not always taken seriously.

Dave shared a video about mental heath and depression called The Black Dog, which is used in the training to support discussions about what poor mental health can feel like.

You can find out more information about the Pass it On training, along with Dave’s contact details here.

Getting the message across - Influencing and informing training

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 6

Accessible Scams Training

IMT have also been working with the National Trading Standards Scam Team.

IMT want to help raise awareness about scams within the learning disability community.

As part of this, IMT have been helping to make the Friends Against Scams training more accessible for people with a learning disability. Some of the changes that they have made include:

changing the font type and size adding Photosymbols informing how to make the text easy read introducing the videos Sonia did the voice over for the videos!

IMT plan to develop training materials and exercises to support the delivery of the training.

The accessible training will be on the National Trading Standards website and available nationally.

Ruth told us that IMT will support the delivery of training for people with a learning disability in East Sussex.

An Introduction to Learning Disabilities Training

For the past two years, IMT have been co-delivering learning disability training with Tania Hudson.

IMT mostly train support staff and managers who are working in residential, respite and community support services.

IMT have also trained a group of young people as part of the Prince’s Trust programme, and a mixed group of people as part of National Inclusion Week.

The training includes IMT’s presentation, ‘There’s more to me than LD!’ and other information about the work IMT do in East Sussex.

IMT shared a snapshot of the encouraging feedback which they have received.

Tania highlighted IMT’s invaluable input in the training.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 7

Good Communication For All

The importance of good communication

Fraser introduced the topic of good communication, and

listed a number of ways to communicate that people find helpful, such as

Makaton

British Sign Language

Easy read.

Fraser gave an overview of some of the basic principles of easy read, such as

Font size 16+

Images to the left

Avoid shortening words

No jargon.

Fraser presented a display board with examples of easy read versions of documents that have been developed by the Learning Disability Partnership Board.

Debbie then spoke about the ways that communication can be supported with technology.

Members of the Learning Disability Partnership Board shared how they use different types of technology, such as

smart watches

fitness trackers

Lifeline personal alarm service.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 8

Communication: your feedback

The Learning Disability Partnership Board want to know how best we can communicate with people with a learning disability and people with an interest in learning disabilities in East Sussex.

Amber showed some of the ways that we communicate, such as

publications

social media posts

webpages.

Amber explained that we have recently updated how our agenda and our minutes look. Copies of these were available on the table. Amber asked each table to provide some feedback on these publications, which would be used to improve the agenda and the minutes further.

Amber then shared some examples of recent social media posts. Amber asked each table to give some suggestions for the sort of social media posts that they would like to see. This is so that we can make our social media posts as useful and interesting as possible.

Amber then shared our webpages and asked each table to feedback on what they would like to be able to use our webpages for. This is so that we can improve the content of the webpages. Amber explained that we are also working on improving the accessibility of the webpages.

Amber thanked everybody for their feedback and said that we would report back on this at a future meeting.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 9

Makaton Friendly Towns

Sandra and Karen told us that they are working towards making Hailsham the first town in East Sussex a Makaton Friendly Town.

You can find more information about Makaton Friendly Towns here.

Sandra and Karen explained that they started speaking to people in businesses in Hailsham but found that not many people knew about Makaton.

Sandra and Karen want to get 30 businesses in Hailsham on board, teaching them different signs. So far Pavilion, Knock Hatch, Tesco and Waitrose have signed up.

Sandra and Karen want people who use Makaton to feel able to communicate better in the town.

Sandra and Karen then showed us Makaton in action, and we all joined in a Makaton version of the song Shotgun by George Ezra. You can see the original video here.

If you would like to get in touch with Sandra and Karen, you can contact them at sandratalkinghands@yahoo.co.uk

Makaton

Makaton Bingo

Kayleigh and Michelle introduced us to an excellent game of Makaton Bingo.

Michelle showed the audience different Makaton signs. We had to match the signs with the symbols on our bingo sheets.

There were prizes for the winners, and we found it to be a great way to learn something new.

Learning Disability Partnership Board, East Sussex - November 2019 Page 10

Any other business and goodbye

The Learning Disability Partnership Board Facebook Page was promoted and people were asked to have a look and like the page if they were interested.

Debbie and Sonia ended the meeting with a thank you and a “Happy Christmas” to everyone for attending and to those who presented.

Sonia confirmed that the next meeting is on 10 March 2020.

ESCC East Sussex County Council

FPLD The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities

ASC Adult Social Care

CLDT Community Learning Disability Team

CCG Clinical Commissioning Groups

DPS Directly Provided Services

Glossary of abbreviations (a list of what the letters mean)