Active Support is an evidence based model of support that increases participation in everyday life for people with learning disabilities, at home and in the community. There is a considerable amount of evidence that shows that where Active Support is embedded within a service it has effectively increased the amount and quality of support provided by staff, to people with moderate to severe learning disabilities, enabling a person to have a better quality of life. People are supported to take part in their own lives with just the right amount of support to achieve successful outcomes.

The ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’ Project is a great opportunity to be kept informed, and supported to be at the forefront of service development in the learning disability sector.

During this three year Project, ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’,  ARC will be working with 30 ARC Members across England and will offer five days support to each service, which includes Active Support training and on-site Interactive Training, as well as support with outcome monitoring and evaluation.

The main aim of the ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’ Project is:

To focus on improving the quality of support for people with learning disabilities, working with the individual and support staff to deliver a more person-centred approach to living more independently.

To achieve the aim of the ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’ Project we will:

• Deliver five days training and support to 30 services across England to embed and sustain Active Support within their practice.
• Develop an Active Support Induction package for services to use as part of their induction process.
• Design a promotional pack aimed at parents and carers showing what Active Support looks like in practice and how it empowers people to have an ‘ordinary life’.
• Arrange for a national conference, aimed at providers, clients, policy makers and commissioners promoting the benefits of Active Support and the outcomes of the Project.  The conference will include presentations from clients, parents, carers and providers and launch both the Active Support Induction and the Active Support Family’s Packs.

Latest Project information:

• Two Promotional days were delivered to promote the ‘Creating an Ordinary Life’ Project and we now have ten pilot services already signed up in the East Midlands to year one of the Project and have been received their support from the project team.
• A further 20 Services for Year Two of the project have now been selected and are being contacted to arrange the training.
• An Advisory Group has been formed and the first face to face meeting was on 24 September 2012 at the Chesterfield office, with  representation from The Department of Health, Mencap, Autism Care UK Ltd, The Challenging Behaviour Foundation, Perthyn, The Avenues Trust, Nottingham Community Housing Association, Derbyshire County Council, Helen Sanderson and Dr Edwin Jones. A further teleconference meeting was held on with the Advisory Group on 14 January 2013.
• An e-forum has been set up for those working in the project pilot services, enabling them to keep in touch and to share the ideas and issues that arise as they are implementing Active Support, and to receive on-going input from the Project Team.

Future Plans:

We are now in the process of contacting the further 20 Services who applied to join Year Two of the project.

These 20 services will again receive four days of free support, and will only need to cover the Project Officer’s expenses. Training and support will be starting in April 2013. Throughout the project, and after the grant funding ends, ARC members can benefit through buying in the expertise of the Project Team.

Creating an Ordinary Life Newsletters:

We are sending out newsletters to our members with updates about the project which can be downloaded here:

• Creating an Ordinary Life Newsletter Issue 1 (October 2012)
• Creating an Ordinary Life Newsletter Issue 2 (January 2013)

If you would like to take part in the Project or want to find out more about the Active Support Service please contact:

• Christine Harcombe, Project Officer
• Telephone 0791 7523778
• Email: Christine.harcombe@arcuk.org.uk

The project is funded by the Department of Health.

The Safety Net project addresses learning disability hate crime and particularly mate crime. Originally funded by the Department of Health the project has been extended with a grant from the Home Office Crime Innovation Fund (CIF), Devon and Cornwall Police, Devon County Council and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

Project Officer Rod Landman is carrying on his work to raise awareness of hate crime and mate crime. Rod and his co-workers will be speaking at a range of conferences and public awareness events. Rod has recently appeared on ITV (Central) and Radio 4’s You and Yours programme to talk about mate crime.

CIF funding is supporting people with learning disabilities to anti-hate crime and bullying training for Year 9 children in mainstream schools across North Devon.

Additional funding from Devon and Cornwall Police, Devon County Council and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital is supporting a Train the Trainer project. This will equip 12 people with learning disabilities from across Devon and Cornwall to achieve the City and Guilds 7300 (Introduction to Training Skills) award. Once learners have achieved the award they will deliver training about hate crime, mate crime and safety issues for a range of hate crime projects across the far South West. It is hoped that the qualified trainers will be offered training work with Devon and Cornwall Police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the county council and others.

The aims of the Safety Net Train the Trainer project:

• 12 people with learning disabilities to gain the City and Guilds 7300 (Introduction to Training Skills) Award.
• Each be supported by their own co-learner, who may also gain the award.
• Successful learners will work on hate and mate crime projects across Devon and Cornwall, particularly the Safety Net Schools’ Project (more information below)
• There will be a Reference Group whose job it is to help them find more training work. The aim of the Reference Group is to change the views of society towards learning disability and hate crime. To this end the Reference Group will:

1. Support successful delivery of the C&G 7300 programme.
2. Monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the C&G 7300 programme.
3. Identify further opportunity for skills development for learners.
4. Identify employment opportunities for qualified trainers.
5. Wherever possible offer employment opportunities to qualified trainers.
6. Ensure the sustainability of the project beyond the training course.

Safety Net Schools’ Project

• Safety Net has had money from the Home Office to run a project in schools.
• The project is about bullying, hate crime and anti-social behaviour.
• We will work with Year 9 children to stop them picking on people with learning disabilities.
• We will work with schools in North Devon.
• We will work in different ways in different schools and see what works best.

The Future

ARC is actively seeking funding to work on the issue of cyber mate crime. Experience from the Safety Net project suggests that many people with learning disabilities are being befriended on line by people who use this faked relationship to financially or sexually abuse and exploit the person with a learning disability. If you are aware of any examples or can suggest sources of project funding please get in touch.

The project is funded by the Home Office (CIF)

Useful Information: For more information on the Getting the Basics Right project contact Shirley: shirley.potter@arcuk.org.uk Find out more about the ECC Project

ARC has developed a training resource that will be used to deliver the Learning Outcomes of the European Care Certificate. This resource will be piloted in Sarajevo, Bosnia with approximately 40 workers. When the workers have completed the training, which is over three days, they will sit the European Care Certificate (ECC) exam.

On completion of this pilot training, it will be evaluated and any amendments implemented so that the resource can be used to deliver further training in other European Countries.

If you would like any further information about this project or about the European Care Certificate please contact Shirley.potter@arcuk.org.uk

This project is funded by the Council of Europe.

The project will work alongside people who find it difficult to get their stories out. Perhaps because of complex disabilities or communication issues. An Advisory Group has been set up to guide the project and then we will be working alsongside individual patients who want to tell their stories and help staff ensure that people who are Lost for Words are able to get their views heard, understood and acted upon.

The project is funded by the Community Foundation Northern Ireland.

Image used has been created by G Hall.

The Money Advice Service have an existing resource called ‘On Your Own 2 Feet’, which is a toolkit that was developed in partnership with ‘Fairbridge’ to use when working with young people to help them understand about financial capability.

ARC have used this resource as a base to develop a toolkit that can be used with individuals with a learning disability. The resource was piloted with groups of people with a learning disability then amended until a finished product was designed.

The toolkit is a combination of guidance, exercises and activities that can be carried out with individuals or groups of people with a learning disability. The idea is that you can use the resource and adapt it to meet the specific needs of the people who you are working with.

It has some great activities about understanding about money such as:

• Learning about how you feel about money
• Understanding about how much things cost
• Raising awareness of money issues
• Attitudes to money
• Where money comes from
• Learning more about finances in their locality
• Learning about essential and non essential spending
• Budgeting
• Where our money goes
• How much can I save?
• How much things really cost
• Running a place of their own
• How to reduce costs

All of the activities have been designed to be interactive and adapted to individual need.

Make use of this resource as it is available to download FREE from our website.

Download your FREE PDF copy: Helping young people with learning disabilities to understand money

If you would like more information about the resource or any other training, please contact ARC’s Learning and Development Manager, Shirley Potter:

• Email: shirley.potter@arcuk.org.uk
• Telephone: 01246 555 043

Other Money Publications

Talking About Money This training pack helps you introduce understanding about money to the individuals who you work with. This covers why money is so important. How to choose a bank and how to open a bank account, banking terminology, budgeting and about financial abuse. This is a training package which includes; suggested timetables, training guidance, slides and handouts.

Moving on Planning Ahead We have developed this similar pack which is in the same format as Talking About Money but introduces people with a learning disability to the idea of moving on and planning ahead, covering; what living independently really means, do they want to live alone or share, rent or buy, what support is needed, how will they pay for it?

Guidance on Money Management There is also this free resource available which was written to help staff at all levels to understand the implications of the Mental Capacity Act when supporting someone to manage their money. This includes information about assessing capacity to make financial decisions, the roles of Appointees, Deputies and Attorneys, supporting people to create Lasting Power of Attorneys plus good practice in supporting individuals who lack capacity.

This project was funded by the Money Advice Service.

It ran from October 2009 until June 2011, HOWEVER, the work of the project continues to have impact and we are seeking funding to do further development work.

All the details of the project can be found at: www.givingusavoice.org.uk.

The project was run jointly by ARC’s BME Unit, BILD and Mencap. There were six project workers, two from each. ARC concentrated on supporting services and commissioners, BILD supported people with Learning Disabilities and Mencap supported family carers.

After preliminary work with each group we hosted 9 regional events at which people from all sectors could come together to discuss what was working and what was not working in services for people with Learning Disabilities from BME communities. We concentrated on four key topics – citizenship, health, work and housing.

We wrote down everything that people said. Over 1000 people contributed their thoughts. From these events we were able to draw up a National Charter for Inclusion stating 20 key points that would make a real difference in people’s lives.

The Charter can be found at: http://givingusavoice.org.uk/charter-for-inclusion/

We encourage people, organisations and support groups to sign up to the Charter. We would like those with power to sign up to the Charter.

We hope that families and people with Learning Disabilities will use the Charter to challenge for better services.

To support this work we also produced two further short guides:

• one for families on ‘Getting Involved’ in developing services
• one (still in production) on how to make complaints and use the law to ensure services are delivering all they should for people with Learning Disabilities from BME communities.

We would hope that everyone reading this looks at the ‘Giving Us A Voice’ website and encourages people to sign up to the Charter.

This project was funded from the Tackling Race Inequality Fund of the Department of Communities.

The resource which was produced in 2011 includes:

• Assessing capacity to make financial decisions
• The roles of Appointees, Deputies and Attorneys
• Supporting people to create Lasting Power of Attorneys
• Good practice in supporting individuals who lack capacity to manage some aspect of their money
• Capacity to enter into a tenancy agreement.

Although the resource was not designed to be a guide for how to support people who are able to make all their own financial decisions with support, some of the principles described may still be useful.

This guidance is available as a FREE PDF download or we can supply a bound colour copy at a small charge.

	Download your FREE PDF copy: Guidance on Money Management
	Bound, colour copy: ARC Members £10 | Non-members £10 Visit the ARC Shop to order.

The project was funded by Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).

• Belfast Health & Social Care Trust
• Department for Employment & Learning
• European Social Fund

‘Get A Life!’ wants to stimulate and support the development of a range of family and community based micro-services in North Belfast.

Over the next three years ARC (NI), in partnership with the Trust, Community Catalysts, Department for Employment & Learning and the European Social Fund, will be working with individuals to set up community-based activities for people with a learning disability in the Belfast area.

Providers of very small services are firmly rooted in their communities and have a good understanding of local issues. They face different challenges to those of larger organisations but this can mean that they are able to offer services that are much more flexible and responsive than those that can be offered by larger providers.

The ‘Get A Life!” project will work with individuals and assist them in overcoming the barriers and challenges. Services offered will include:

• Advice and guidance
• Information on training and learning opportunities and requirements
• Business Support
• Clarifying current commissioning and contracting practices
• Networking opportunities

Additional information:

The project is in the early stages of development. If you are interested, please contact Mariead Magill:

• Mariead Magill on 028 9038 0960
• Email: mariead.magill@arcuk.org.uk

The project will support people working in these organisations to access and benefit from high quality training.

We hope that training providers, qualification developers and awarding bodies will review their practice to ensure that training can be accessed by people from a range of ethnic backgrounds.

We have developed protocols for trainers, training developers and third sector organisations to ensure all are providing the best possible outcomes for Black Voluntary Organisations. It is well recognised that the main strength and value of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) lies in its support and delivery of services to BME communities.

The BME voluntary and community sector works to tackle disadvantage and discrimination and to empower communities. It advocates for community and BME individual need, providing the following:

• Support
• Advice
• Assisted signposting
• Information
• Improved quality of life
• Actively involving some of the most socially excluded people in the community.

However, many of the organisations within this sector also encounter inequalities regarding access to resources, information and training opportunities. With the glut of government initiatives aimed at increased community involvement from disadvantaged, marginalised and excluded communities, there has been a growing demand for training, learning, and capacity building to facilitate active participation from communities.

However, their lack of access to and availability of culturally appropriate training can impact on their capacity to work with training/infrastructure organisations (for some of these, training has limited relevance as it is not rooted in the values and principles or experiences of people with learning disabilities from BME communities).

Also, organisations in this sector have to work in a world that demands increasingly professional standards. The voluntary sector is being asked to conform to a myriad of council-imposed targets, league tables, inspectorates, rules and regulations.

With funding from Capacity Builders’ ‘Improving Reach 2008-11’ investment programme ARC has been working with BME VCS social care organisations including learning disabilities and training sector organisations to develop protocols to improve access to and knowledge of the training needs of the BME VCS social care sector.

The development of these protocols will ensure more small BME VCS social care organisations in England receive high-quality support services which are appropriate for them. The protocols will enable them to access nationally recognised training that takes account of their cultural needs, thereby ensuring such organisations are fully able to maximise their potential and increase their day to day focus on services that they deliver to BME people including those with learning disabilities.

Training for All latest information:

• By March 2011: 300 organisations will have agreed to the protocols
• By March 2011: 5 key identified training/infrastructure organisations will be altering policy and practice to better address needs of BME VCS social care sector.

Training for All is funded by The Cabinet Office – Change up Monies and Capacity Builders

What we mean by new migrants
Individuals who are not British citizens but permanently or temporarily resident in England since 1997; this includes asylum seekers, refugees, seasonal workers and travellers, from all ethnic groups from within and outside of the European Union.

There is a lack of information about the prevalence of learning disabilities in this group and the services they need.

The Here to Stay project seeks to address this problem.

We need your help to make this research a beneficial undertaking. If you are from a minority community or care for anyone with a learning disability or are a service provider, a researcher with information to share, or know of anyone who might help, we would like to hear from you.

Working with The University of Wolverhampton.

This project is funded by Big Lottery Fund, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

For more information see the Here to Stay website.