Report to the

National Forum of People with Learning Disabilities Region: North East

Date: 10th February 2016

North east region – report for National Forum meeting in November 2015

What is going well? We have more than doubled the number of people coming along to our last Regional meeting in December (39). We have also got a number of visits planned to some self advocacy groups who have not been coming along for some time.

What are your 3 big issues?

1. Some of our members have been working on the regional Transforming Care Board. This is the group who are organising the closure of some Learning Disability Assessment and Treatment services and some Forensic hospital services. To make sure this happens effectively, there is a group of self advocates called the Confirm and Challenge Group, who co-ordinate involvement and make sure it happens in the best possible way.

2. We have been promoting our ideas about better commissioning and improving the quality of support providers, so that people don’t end up in assessment and treatment / secure services. We spent most of our last regional meeting talking about how local self advocacy groups can influence social care and health commissioning.

3. Many member groups are concerned about the effects of cuts in support for training, jobs and other activities during the day.

Other news:

We are in the process of holding an election for a second representative to the National Forum. We held a meeting towards the end of last year to talk about how the various networks in the region can work together more effectively. This involved the Regional Forum, the Families Forum, the North East Partnership and Inclusion North. We agreed to explore having joint meetings between the Regional Forum and the Families Forum, as well as making the representation systems work better.

Please email this report to: lucyvirgo@inclusionnorth.org