Safety Net

The Safety Net project aims to prevent the exploitation of people with learning disabilities, by those claiming to be their friends, and deals with issues around ‘mate crime’.

Many people with learning disabilities have ‘friends’ who go on to abuse them. This has led to people losing their independence, financial, physical and sexual abuse, exploitation … even murder.

The project should create awareness of these topics for people with a learning disability, carers, professionals and the wider community.

Safety Net will undertake the following:

  • to scope the size of the problem in two pilot areas and nationally
  • to keep up to date with developments nationally
  • to provide ‘friend or fake’ training for people with learning disabilities
  • to raise awareness of the project to others in the community
  • to look for contacts for any similar projects locally or nationally in an effort not to reinvent the wheel.

There are two pilot groups; one in North Devon (project officer Rod Landman) and one pilot group in Calderdale (project officer David Grundy).

The pilot groups will work locally with people who have learning disabilities, the police, community leaders, safety partnerships and local partnership boards. Safety Net will record the work of the pilot groups so others can use it and we have set up a blog for the 2 project officers to share information more freely on the Safety Net Website.

Safety Net is taking part in local media campaigns (radio, newspapers, posters, tv) as appropriate.

Latest Safety Net project information:

  • The Advisory Group of interested and relevant people nationally have been meeting regularly and will continue to support the work of the project.
  • The pilot groups have both had several meetings and have been gathering evidence of exploitation from the local areas. The terms of reference have been developed and agreed.
  • The biggest finding so far, from talking to the pilot groups, is that people with a learning disability struggle to recognise when they are being exploited. There have been cases where a person is being exploited but is convinced that the exploiter is their friend. It is expected that most of the evidence of mate crime that we gather for this project will come from third party reporting.
  • Research into scoping the size of the problem locally and nationally and keeping abreast of developments within the areas of hate crime, mate crime, exploitation and abuse is ongoing.
  • The Safety Net website has been launched and content is being added as it comes in.

When the Safety Net project is complete we hope:

  • to have developed local strategies and protocols to support and protect people with learning disabilities with issues of ‘mate crime’.
  • to have raised community awareness.
  • to have developed training for people with learning disabilities about friendship and training to raise community awareness.

Safety Net is funded by the Department of Health