I’m Mary Woodall and I am a self-advocate and member of Learning Disability England’s representative body.

As part of this work on the rep body I am Learning Disability England’s representative on the Social Care All Party Parliamentary group (APPG) lived experience advisory group.

The lived experience group brings together the voices of people with lived experience to have their say in policy change on adult social care.

For some of the meetings we have been speaking about accessible voting and getting people with learning disabilities involved in politics.

43 organisations joined together to write to the minister about the lack of an accessible version of the consultation on the Oliver McGowan mandatory training code of practice.

The letter was to say it is not acceptable that people with learning disabilities do not have equal information or time to think about and respond to a code of practice on training that is about their lives.

We were asking that they can confirm when it will be available and that they will give an extension for responses so people with learning disabilities can be an equal part of the consultation.

You can read the letter here.

Since we sent the letter we have seen 17 more organisations show their support.

The new version with these updated signatories is here.

Back in June, the Members reps sent a letter to all Learning Disability England members.

Read that letter here

The letter was about Sally Lewis and the inquest into her death.

Sally died because the people supporting her did not get her care right.

Dimensions was the organisation supporting Sally.

Since then, a few things have happened that the rep body wanted to tell members about.

Guest Blog by Marie Lovell, Member of Learning Disability England

I was talking to my friend Chris who is hoping to make a documentary about leaseholds. 

He told me about many examples of people who have bought a flat or house, sometimes using ‘help to buy’ or ‘shared ownership’.

They then found they were stuck with expensive service charges or ground rent, or landlords who don’t do repairs.

Last week, some of us at Learning Disability England attended the launch event for a research project.

It was around Supported Housing for People with Learning Disabilities and Autistic People in England.

This research was led by the Learning Disability and Autism Housing Network and Housing LIN.

The research looked at the scale, size, scope, and cost of supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

They hope this information will go onto inform and influence future government policy in relation to accommodation and supported housing.

Social Care Future is a movement of people working together for change.

They believe we should all be able to live in a place we call home, with the people and things we love, in communities where we look out for one another and doing the things that matter to us.

They have put together their plan to achieve this vision.

Here is the easy-read version of their plan.

Here is the Plain-English version.

They’re focusing on building the conditions for the change we all want through storytelling, growing people power and forging new coalitions for change that will build bridges to the future.

Gary Bourlet, Learning Disability England’s Membership and Engagement Lead had a chat with Neil Crowther and Tricia Nicoll to find out more about their plans for the future.

Here you can watch the video of their full conversation:

Here you can watch a shorter version:

If you can find more updates from Social Care Future and find out about their upcoming events here.

A blog from the Learning Disability England Membership and Engagement Lead’s

Its been a year and a half, 2 annual conferences and over 50 meetings with members and partners since we launched Good Lives.

As the Membership and Engagement Leads we wanted to share what has happening and what is next.

Its been amazing to see people coming together to get involved in Good Lives and using to it take action on our shared vision for a good life for people with learning disabilities.

Members have been doing all sorts of things:

• United Pride Friends and U-Night Group shared vlogs about why the To Love and Be Loved chapter is so important, especially to LGBT+ people with a learning disability.

• NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent Surrey and Sussex have set up a  Good Lives, Learning Disability Research Network

• Bild for the Future have been thinking about what a chapter on health might look like. There will be a some opportunities to be part of that thinking so keep an eye out!

These are just a few examples, thank you to everyone who has been making Good Lives their own.

Today the Members reps sent a letter to all Learning Disability England members. 

The letter is about Sally Lewis and the inquest into her death.

Sally died because the people supporting her did not get her care right.

Sally was supported by Dimensions.  

Because of the mistakes they made Sally died from constipation.

The inquest found that she died partly because of neglect – this means that the people supporting her did not do their job. 

You can read the full letter we sent here. 

What Rachael, one of our Membership and Engagement leads, has been up to this week. 

On Tuesday I travelled down to Bristol to connect with southern members and partners at the Big Connect, a More Than A Provider event.  

More than a Provider is collaborative of support providers who support and are taking action toward to Social Care Future’s Vision.  

It was great to see so many members there, including paid support rep Scott! 

In a workshop with United Response and Dimensions we talked about the My Vote, My Voice campaign encouraging people with a learning disability to take part in elections.

Learning Disability England has been working in partnership with researchers from the University of York and the University of Bristol, Riverside, Housing LIN and Stephen Lee Hodgkins on a research project.

The project team also has an advisory group of self-advocates with lived experience from York People First and My Life, My Choice.

People with learning disabilities have said that ‘a home‘ was one of the most important things about leading a good life.

This project is about finding better ways to support people with learning disabilities at the edges of social care into social and private rented housing.

The first stage of the research looked at options available for people at the edges of social care to live in ‘ordinary’ rented housing in the community.

This involved holding large roundtable events attended by lots of professionals and experts by experience.