Wolverhampton Peoples Parliament
MPs Kamal Jassal and Jessica Bromley, who took charge of a busy agenda and held professionals to account, chaired the meeting. They used a newly developed traffic light system to record the progress made by professionals in achieving their pledges.
The meeting was extremely well attended by public and third sector organisations, who came to present on the outcomes that they had successfully completed. (direct to outcomes). New stakeholders included Wendy Walker from Wolverhampton Volunteer Centre, who came to introduce the service, how it supports people and the value of volunteering as a potential way into paid work.
Roger Painter, Employment Consultant, presented employment figures from across the West Midland for people with learning disabilities and told the Select Committee that the best performing areas are those with a meaningful written strategy, strong leadership and where there is an assumption of employment from an early age.
Chris Parsons from Adult Education in Wolverhampton shared the success of her pledge in employing a person with a learning disability to work over 16 hours. We heard about the journey that this pledge this took and the barriers that Chris had to overcome to achieve this.
The People's Parliament were thrilled to hear that the Wolverhampton City Council now have a Job Carving Policy, which has been signed up to corporately and will be rolled out cross departmentally. Their Supported Employment Team have got 5 people into work since December 2012, 6 people on their way to jobs with a commitment to another 15 jobs for people with learning disabilities over the next 6 months.
The next Employment Select Committee will be held on November 1st 2013.
The findings of the Learning Disability Health Self-Assessment Framework will be used to do this, which will no stranger to MP Jessica Bromley, who was trained as a 'Local Health Champion' to undertake this exercise in other areas within the West Midlands. Jess said, "This was a really good experience for me and I learnt lot. Many areas in the West Midlands don't have good information on people with learning disabilities and this needs to be improved on in the future to make sure that people get the right services".
For further information contact Lucy Dunstan on 0121 553 7174.
Wolverhampton People's Parliament meet three times a year to decide local priorities; in 2011-12 these were employment and keeping people safe. MPs produce a white paper, outlining key outcomes and deadlines, which they present to the council. The meeting, where each policy partner outlines how they will respond, is filmed; three months later, partners are required to report back on progress to a "select committee". Key achievements this year include a new job role within the council that shapes policy for people with a learning disability and a "Safe Places" logo scheme, where partners such as retailers and leisure centres commit to supporting people in need of help. The parliament's next priority is health.
Sarah Norman, strategic director of Wolverhampton council's community directorate, says the project 'puts people with a learning disability in the front seat, doing the driving', adding that it has proved to be 'a very powerful forum.' The Guardian said the 'parliament for has made the city a more inclusive place to live.'
• A Job Carving policy has been introduced in Wolverhampton Council, to lead the way in the employment of adults with a learning disability.
• Five Jobs have been recruited using the Job Carving Policy in the last 6 months.
• The policy is managed by the HR department to embed it across the council.
• Four people are now in self-employment as consultants deliver training, and service audits
• Six paid jobs have been established with a private contractor but supported by a third sector organisation.
People's Parliament were also instrumental in the launch of the Safe Places Scheme in Wolverhampton. They worked with the Police to find places, like shops and businesses, who will support people who are in need of help. As a result of good strategic partnerships with the police they agreed to fund the project and manage its implementation. The Community Wardens lead the project in partnership with adults with a learning disability. It has been featured on Central News, and two local radio stations. There are now:
• 150 Safe Places in the city
• 200 adults are using the scheme
• 100 staff trained about Hate Crime
Wolverhampton Peoples Parliament puts people at the heart of strategic decision making; it raises the profile of adults with a learning disability with senior executives, and enables them to hold people to account and the MP's now have close links to the Chief Executive's office. The Chief executive and all Directors regularly attend Parliament meetings, and know MP's personally. An important addition to the outcomes achieved by the service is the increase in confidence of the MP's now that they have experience of working closely with senior managers. This has led to a number of MP's developing raised expectations of themselves and what they want out of life. They are considering what jobs they want or how they want to increase their independence, such as living in their own homes as well as linking up with other areas within the west midlands region, sharing good practice and providing information advice and training to a range of organisations, and leading by example to show how adults with a learning disability can be active members of the local community, and community leaders.
All of the experiences and issues will be fed into Wolverhampton's Learning Disability Health Self-Assessment, which will be sent to the Strategic Health Authority in September. This self-assessment is a real opportunity to improve health care for people with learning disabilities. The main areas identified as needing improvements will be fed into the People's Parliament so it can monitor what real change happens for people with learning disabilities across the City.
The Safe Places scheme was recently highlighted on Central Evening News, with Jess and James explaining the scheme and how it works. They gave a 'real life' demonstration about Safe Places using Tylers Gas and Electrical, the first Safe Place in Wolverhampton.
The news item can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_nprUksxg&feature=youtu.be
Safe Place Training
Wolverhampton People's Parliament MPs have trained over 50 people with a learning disability over the last few days on the Safe Place scheme.
More to come next week!
Jess and Andy working on the Safe Place training presentations for Wolverhampton.
They will be visiting day services over the next few weeks to tell everyone about the scheme before the official launch on 09th March 2012.
Employment White Paper
On Friday 16th of December 2011, the Wolverhampton People's Parliament held an event in the City Council Chambers to celebrate the work that had been done since they launched their Employment White paper for people with a learning disability in the City 12 months ago.
Attended by Simon Warren, Chief Executive of Wolverhampton City Council and formally opened by the Mayor, Councillor Bert Turner, the event saw many local employment agencies and some of the City Council's Adult Services Team share what they had done to support people with learning disabilities into employment.
Representatives from the Council's Employment Teams based at Sentier, spoke about the training and employment opportunities that are available and how they have supported people into paid employment. Changing Our Lives also produced five films about people with a learning disability who had initially found paid work following this pathway.
Access 2 Business shared what they do and their success from supporting people into employment, whilst Mary Dunleavy from Job Centre Plus explained what support can be offered to employees and employers through the Access to Work programme.
At the end of the event, Simon Warren acknowledged the efforts everyone had made and discussed with Councillor Steve Evans who has supported the Parliament throughout the last year, how they can work together to identify other ways to engage people with a learning disability into paid employment.
During the first Parliament meeting, the MP's also put forward the creation of a Safe Places scheme. This is where local shops, businesses and public buildings are nominated as a 'Safe Place', or somewhere a person with a learning disability would go if they feel threatened, have been a victim of a crime or have become lost and confused.
The Red Telephone sticker is displayed on these buildings and people know they can go there for help. Everyone with a learning disability in the City will be given a card where their name and the contact details of their family or people who support them are written. They will then be supported to make contact with the people on their card. If the matter is serious, the people at the shops or businesses will support the person to contact the police.
We are currently finding ways to secure funds that will help us to set up and run this scheme in Wolverhampton. We have the support of the City of Wolverhampton Police, as well as the City Council and we hope we can start this project in the near future.
Members of Wolverhampton People's Parliament:
- Andy Howell – Joint Lead on Employment and is Co-Chair of the Learning Disability Partnership Board.
- James Millard – Leads on Hate Crime
- Jessica Bromley – Leads on Health Matters
- Matthew Roberts – Parliament Co-Secretary
- Sara Gorman – Parliament Co-Secretary
- Winsome Clarke – Supports work on Hate Crime
- Christian Hamilton – Lead for Young People
- Michael Hopkins – Leads on Public Transport
