Notes of meeting held

At City Library

On 20 August 2009

Sheriff Brenda Hindmarsh opened themeeting and welcomed everyone. She then told everyone the sad news about the death of Van Brunning a long standing member of the Board.

We were then introduced to Sam Clark and Scott Cunningham from Inclusion North who are to run the meeting for us today.

Sam said that today we would look at the Partnership Board as it is today and look at what we wanted to do in the future and how we could do it.

Today would also be fun and there would be lots of involvement for everyone.

The first thing we had to do was think about The board and what sort of big company was it like.

The ideas we came up with were•Farm shop – small business•Fenwicks•Andrex•Microsoft•Co-op•Compare the Meercat . ComWe had quite a variety due to how people saw the Board, as a local company as something which is maybe losing momentum and as different from other organisations.

Scott then asked everyone what we wanted the rules of the day to be – we said•Switch mobile phones off•One person to speak at a time and listen to each other, don’t interrupt•No disappearing, but leave when you need to•Speak up when you are too hot or too cold•FriendlyThere will also be a bin on the wall for everyone to put actions which we will look at later.

He then asked us to think about what the Partnership Board was good at. We did this in our groups.

What the Partnership Board is good at .

This is what we thought we were good at. Scott drew our ideas on a chart.

•We are proud of our champions, good stuff is being done

•The Board vision is unique and well documented, Citizens First

•We are starting to share good ideas in the Region

•We talk about people’s lives, what really matters.

•Bill Norman, makes it easy to understand, he has commitment

•People with a learning disability have been involved for a long time – Barbara and Chris

•People learn about new things

•Meetings are open and friendly

•We will try out new ideas

•Brenda and Liz are our elected members

•Good work has been done about people’s right to vote

•Having a theme each time and the champions are included

•Long term commitment from people gives consistency

•Champions feel their opinion counts

•The Board, helped to fund and get the Blue Card going

•The Champions get paid!

What Valuing People Now says the Partnership Board should do

•Locally all parts of the council should be working together

• Make things Happen - and there is a National Learning Disability Partnership Board to check on this

•There is a Regional Forum which links to Partnership Boards so we know what’s going on.

•We need to plan and decide what services are needed

•How these services will work and check how well they are working

•We include all services not just for people with Learning Disabilities but make sure that people can use services.

The Partnership Board Vision – What the Board will be like in the future.

We again worked in groups to get our ideas.

Something we all agreed on was that we needed joined up partnership working for everyone in Newcastle and local area agreements. The job of the Local Strategic Partnership is to bring all areas of Newcastle together including employers, health and police. Plus there are other different groups e.g. Safe Newcastle, Children and young people, health and wellbeing which need to be included.

Most importantly commitment from people who can make decisions and get things done, or who know someone who can get it done. People who can see the big picture.

Our other ideas were

•Talk about people’s real lives

•Short power points and stories

•Right support for Champions, accessible information, suitable venues and make sure they have enough time

•Space to talk informally

•Better networking, sharing, telling feedback, accountability

•Keep it simple

•Recognise what the Board’s done

•Consultations, one off events

•Don’t try to do too much at once

•Check it works

•Regular “brief” updates from all sub groups at each meeting

•Better planning for meetings

•More breaks

•Session at end to summarise what’s been covered, decisions made and confirm we have done what we said we would do

•More focus, involvement, whole Valuing People Now agenda

•Be more widely known and included

•Annual report to tell it as it is. Regional LD board, LSP, PCT Board, Council.

•Remind people Valuing People Now is legislation

•Elect Co-chair and deputy co-chair

•Some senior people in Theme groups, where the work gets done

•Target some people to attend certain meetings

•Involvement from Children’s Services is very important

•Transport should be a core member

•Get MP’s involved where they can make a difference

•Go to other Board’s meetings and they come to ours

•More carers and better links with carers

•Clearer targets

•People who can challenge the theme groups need to be at meetings

•Good links with the community and different communities

•How can we help the decision makers? we need to find out what’s important to them.

•Help colleges to plan programmes

We then talked about who we need to work with

•Someone who knows who the partnerships are

•Les, Bill, Champions

•People who want to have individual budgets

•Newcastle Disability Forum

•Voluntary Sector

•Regional business Groups

•BME Group

•Friendship groups – bowling, football, snooker, others

•People and organisations that provide services

•Older people

•Advocacy groups

•Carers, parents and other support workers

•Environment and leisure – LA21, gardening, previous crime, sign project, allotments

• Community safety

•Good Groups and Charities – Better Days, CIC, Edward Lloyd Trust, Your Voice Counts, Skills for People

•Police and who reports local hate crime to SNAPS

•One North East

•MH partnership

•Links

•Nexus and rail companies

•Health promotion e.g. Josephine project

•Town planners, architects

•Local Medical Committees

•NHS Trust Boards (Better Health Group)

•PCT Board

•Quality of Life Partnership

•Safer Newcastle Partnership, Safer Neighbourhood Action

•Councillors, ward committees, youth workers, roads

•Employers

•Job Centre Plus

•Training providers, college, key enterprises

•Department of Work and Pensions

•The Mayor

•Chamber of Commerce

•Northumbria University – Centre for excellence in teacher training

•Newcastle College governing body and other colleges governing bodies

•Children’s Services, Children and young people, extended schools, Surestart

•Adult Transformation Board – Theme 5 which is Learning Disabilities

•Housing, Newcastle housing and housing associations

•Mental Health

•Democratic Services

•Day Centres

•Private landlords

•Welfare rights

•Fire Brigade

The next thing we talked about was what needs checking and how the Partnership Board checks on things

•Check that companies are actually employing people with learning disabilities. Ask if we can meet with some of the people they employ. Could be a mystery shopper type visit

•BME communities should be included in Transformation of Services work. Invite someone to join the board

•Check that the Police are supporting people with learning disabilities properly, who have been released from prison. Ask the people who have been released, but how would we know who they are? Maybe talk to them before they get released. Could prison visitors/families come to the Board meetings?

•Success rates of colleges (self assessed) and what the courses lead on to. College representative on Board. Check that courses are right for people. Talk to people at college or who have been to college

•What sub groups/theme groups have been doing. Main priorities – Smart targets.

•Keep up to date with what is happening in other meetings. Knowing where we fit in

•How many people have a direct payment or individual budget in Newcastle. Find out the figures from the council or those involved with people.

•Have timescales

•Partnership Boards needs to help the champions to ask the right questions. Are things better or worse?

•Need to be clear about what people are being asked to do

•Indicators that are important and get measured

•Gather evidence of people experiences. The Champions can do this.

•Quality Checkers

•Person Centred Planning postcards

•PCTs to gather evidence from GP’s – are health checks happening? Are they good?

•Official figures and statistics needed

•How much budget does the council have for learning disabilities and how is it spent?

•Need to see services and opportunities being available for people.

The last thing we did on the day was look at the Actions we had put onto the bin on the wall during the meeting. Lots of these have been mentioned during other discussions but they are a good reminder of what’s important and needs to be looked at.

•Still too many long words

•Too much information to take in

•Access

•Meetings can be too long

•Annual updates are too far apart

•Sharing good practice is statutory focused

•Action plan – we don’t check what is happening so we don’t know if we have clout

•Communication between partners

•Need to make sure we get done what we need to do

•At every meeting should we look at the progress and work done since the last one

•The people involved are always the same people

•Are the real decision makers in touch?

•How can people with learning disabilities ask the Board to help them

•Sub groups have varying usefulness and have we got chairs and member s right

•We have open meetings, does this mean we lose sight of who is actually on Board and their roles

•Presentations are not always easy to understand

•Starting to share good practice across region but it tends to be VP officers not all of us

•We are not sure if the right people are coming to the Board

•Membership!

•Lots of key groups are not involved enough – quality checkers, parents, better Days, FANE – the voluntary sector in general.

•Voluntary sector is divided, they are competing, not enough resources to work together.

•Local Authority need to be clear what money it has and how it’s being spent

•The action plan is too big so can not be achieved, we need to focus

•We want more feedback and checks

One final comment

•It’s been a great day because I learnt a lot. A lot of good work.

Sam and Scott thanked everyone for their contribution today. The notes will be written up and decisions made on how the Board will be in the future.