Self-Advocates Forum

Self-Advocates Forum

Minutes of Meeting

Present :	Present :
Phil Scott – Self Advocate	Robin Plumley – Self Advocate
Steven Hutchinson – Self Advocate	Martin Lee – Self Advocate
Stephanie Arksey – Self Advocate	Sam Hind – Self Advocate
Duncan Mace – Self Advocate	Rosie Thackersay – Self Advocate
Michelle Ward – Self Advocate	Daniel Sanderson – Self Advocate
Lauren Dent-McShane – City of York Council	Peta Hatton – City of York Council
Darren Waterworth – Self Advocate	David Cartwright – Self Advocate
Glyn Newberry – City of York Council	Ully – Supporter (CB)
Moira Annonsen –York Advocacy	Jamie Edwards – York Advocacy
Ingrid East – York Advocacy	Kayti Ball – York Advocacy

3^rd February 2016


Welcome

Jamie welcomed everyone to the forum. She explained that today’s forum was being held at a different venue – Highcliffe House due to the flooding damage at the Tang Hall Community Centre. Jamie explained that the forum would be back at the Community Centre from next month (March).

Housekeeping
As the venue was different Jamie went through the housekeeping rules and told everyone -

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  Where the toilets were.
  
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  Where the fire exits were.
  
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  We would have a break with tea, coffee and biscuits.
  

Ground Rules
Jamie explained the ground rules to everyone:

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  Listen
  
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  Respect
  
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  No jargon
  
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  Confidentiality
  
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  No shouting or swearing
  
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  No mobile phones at the Forum
  

Glyn Newberry from City of York Council’s Sports and Physical Activity Team attended to give everyone a sports update for this month.

Sports Update
There is a new opportunity for sports and leisure clubs and organisations who are looking to develop their group. The Sport and Active Leisure ‘small grants fund’ is a pot of money to help clubs or groups to help increase the number of people attending the groups or help support the group to provide quality activities. For more information please see the Disability Sport and Physical Activity Newsletter, which can be found at https://www.york.gov.uk/disabilitysport
The health walks programme is continuing with over 15 different walks to take part in, more information about the times and dates for each walk can be found on the website https://www.york.gov.uk/disabilitysport
There will be a cricket launch on Thursday 18^th February 10-2pm, this launch will hopefully lead to weekly sessions which will be held at the Burnholme Community Centre.
Jorvik Boccia club starts its monthly sessions on the 7^th Feb and 6^th March from 11am-3pm. For further information please contact Liz Moulam: 07742 886883 or email: [e-mail]
A new table tennis group started on Tuesday 2^nd February and will be held every Tuesday 4.30-6pm at Joseph Rowntree School.
York and District Bowls Club will start their new Boccia Sessions on the 10th February from 1pm-2pm. The sessions will then run weekly. The first 2 sessions after the launch will be free. For more information please contact Hannah Higginson on [e-mail] or 01904 551431.
Everyone thanked Glyn for coming to give the sports update.
York Independent Living and Travel Skills
Jamie then introduced Peta Hatton and Lauren Dent-McShane from YILTS (York Independent Living and Travel Skills). Jamie explained that Peta and Lauren had come along to talk to self-advocates about the work they do to help people to travel independently and how they could help self-advocates to do the same.
Peta introduced herself and asked self-advocates if anyone in the room had a bus pass. Most self-advocates have a bus pass!
Peta explained that these particular bus passes are to help people with disabilities to make travel around York easier and that part of her work is to help people get these bus passes as well as learning how to use them.
Peta then brought up a power point presentation and told the self-advocates a little bit about the YILTS service.
Peta explained that the service started in 2004 and originally was created to help school children with disabilities to travel safely to and from school. Peta explained that since then the service has grown and now helps adults with disabilities too.

Peta then went onto explain that YILTS is a really useful service for people as it helps you to go out and travel more and do things on your own.

Some self-advocates raised the issue of hate crime on buses and said it’s difficult to travel alone as they worry about receiving abuse from other passengers.
Peta and Lauren explained that they can help with this. Peta explained that YILTS can help people learn how to look after themselves if abuse does happen whilst travelling.
Peta and Lauren also give lots of feedback to bus drivers and companies about issues people are having whilst travelling including abusive behaviour.
Peta told self-advocates that YILTS supports both children attending school and any adult who needs help to improve their independence and travel skills so they can access council support services.
Peta and Lauren then told the forum a little bit about what they do to help people improve their travel and independence skills. Peta explained that the service will first get to know the person, and find out where they want to go and any worries or fears they have about travelling alone.
Then the YILTS worker will sit with the person and make a plan. This plan will explain how the person will travel from their home to their final stop which will either be work or a day service.
Peta explained that once the plan had been made the worker would go out and help the person learn the route, understand the buses and help learn other skills such as using their bus pass or how to cross a road safely.
The worker would continue to go out with the person regaurly so that they had support whilst learning the route. The worker would continue to do this until the person felt safe enough to try some of the route alone.
The aim is to help people to feel safe and independent enough to travel alone without any support.
Peta explained that as part of the plan, they would also help the person to look at what to do if something went wrong, such as a bus being late or a footpath being closed.
Peta asked self-advocates what they would do to help themselves if they ever came across a problem whilst travelling.
One self-advocate said it’s a really good idea to carry a mobile phone as you can then contact someone to ask for help if you get stuck.
Peta said that this was a really good idea and something that they always suggest to people using YILTS.
Peta then listed some of the benefits for people becoming involved in the YILTS project.

Here are some of the benefits –

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  a bus pass
  
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  learning to stay safe
  
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  going out independently
  
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  confidence
  
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  healthier lifestyle from walking and travelling around
  

Peta then showed self-advocates a presentation of a YILTS student’s success story. The presentation talked about Chris. Chris catches 2 buses now but used to travel by taxi.

When Chris first started working with YILTS his mum was very worried about him and wasn’t sure he would be safe.

Chris started by travelling on the buses with teachers and friends. Slowly he learnt how to catch the bus and how to travel safely.

Chris has now been using the bus for 3 years and uses the bus to get to Blueberry Academy 3 days a week and his job at the council building 1 day a week.
Chris loves catching the bus as it means he gets to walk through town and visit his favourite shop HMV!
Chris’ mum still worries about him but is glad that he can be independent and do things for himself like everyone else. Chris has also become a lot fitter since using the buses as he has started walking more in between bus routes.

Chris said that he wanted to thank the YILTS service for helping him to be more independent. Chris is now able to meet his friend on the bus and go out and do things. He said for him ‘it’s like an adventure!’

Some self-advocates were still concerned about possible abuse when using buses and what might happen if they were travelling alone.

Peta and Lauren said that the service try to do everything possible to help people feel safe when travelling including talking to bus companies about issues and ways the bus companies can help to make people feel safer.

Lauren explained that it’s really important for people to report any abuse or hate crime and that with CCTV on the buses it is a lot easier to catch those who abuse others when using public transport.
Lauren and Peta said that they understood it was a big worry for many self-advocates and asked if self-advocates would like them to come along to another forum to talk more specifically about hate crime and travelling. Self-Advocates said they would like this.
Self-Advocates thanked Lauren and Peta for coming to today’s forum.

BREAK
Keeping Safe Online

After the break Jamie introduced Angela Whitehall from York Learning. Angela explained she had come to talk to self-advocates about a new course called ‘keeping safe online’.

Angela explained that the course was to help keep people safe when using the internet for things such as shopping, or for talking to others on websites such as Facebook. Angela asked self-advocates if they used the internet. Many self-advocates said they used the internet. Angela asked people if they felt safe online. Most people said yes.

Angela explained that it’s important to stay safe online and the course can help give some tips on ways to stay safe so that you can enjoy using the internet.

Angela handed out some leaflets about the course and explained that if a group of people from the forum wanted to take part she could look at setting up an additional group, as there were only a few spaces left in the current group.

Self-advocates thanked Angela for coming!

Health Action Superheroes Comic
Jamie then passed around the finished copy of the self-advocates ‘Health Action Superheroes comic. Jamie explained that all the self-advocates hard work creating characters and stories have been put together and drawn and that the final comic was really good.

Self-advocates looked through the comic and were excited about seeing their character’s in the comic. Jamie and Kayti explained that the comic was being printed professionally and once this was done they would bring copies into the forum for self-advocates.

Jamie explained that the comic would also be available online through NHS England.
Jamie thanked everyone for attending today’s forum.


The next forum meeting will be on Wednesday 2^nd March 2016.