Scottish Borders Advisory Group

Sylvia speaking at Big Plan

Sylvia speaking at Big Plan

Sylvia and James have attended many meetings across the Scottish Borders and have formed an Advisory Group which includes:

  • people with learning difficulties
  • parents
  • service providers
  • local authority representatives

Image: Action PointsAction Points

This group has met several times and has begun work on the following Action Points:

  • Download the Borders Action Plan 2010 – 2011

  • Promoting the Charter for Involvement

    The Charter sets out ways for people who provide services to involve the people they support in the way their services are planned and delivered. We are working with the Brothers of Charity to support them to implement the Charter.
 Read more about the Charter for Involvement

  • Access Issues

    Exploring ways to take action on access issues in Peebles, Duns and other areas.

  • Newsletter – Community Matters News

    Producing a Newsletter to spread the good news about the things that are happening in the Borders to help people with learning difficulties have a voice on issues that concern them. Read about the good things happening in the Borders at the moment in Community Matters News -

  • Citizen Leadership

    Exploring how we might help to take forward the Citizen Leadership agenda in the Borders. Delivering training in Active Citizenship to some young people with Interest Link. This work builds on the work of the User and Carer Forum on the Principles and Standards of Citizen Leadership, and the training programme ‘Preparing for Change’, based on these, which ARC Scotland was involved in designing and delivering.

    For more information about the training course see the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability.

    Progress Scotland and the Borders Citizens Leaders worked in partnership with the South East Learning Network and other groups to run an event on Citizen Leadership in Edinburgh on 18th January 2011. For further information about events like this, visit the Scottish Social Services Learning Network.

Good things happening

Progress Scotland staff have found out that lots of good things are happening in the Scottish Borders to help improve things for people with learning difficulties.

There are lots of ways in which people are taking action on things that concern them in their services and in their communities across the Borders:

  • There is a Citizens Panel which meets every few months, bringing together people who use services, family carers and staff from Scottish Borders Council, to share information and tackle issues. Some people from this Panel also sit on the Learning Disability Board. For more information about these two groups see the Community Matters News.
  • Members of the Citizens Panel and the Providers Group are meeting with others to discuss how to encourage more involvement and participation of people with learning difficulties in their communities. If you have any ideas to share with this group, please get in touch with Progress Scotland.
  • There is a group in Duns who are taking action about the lack of access to their local bank. Again there is information about this in the Community Matters News. Morag Blaikie has written about the campaign. Morag Blaikie’s Story
  • People are active in their Community Council, finding out what other people in their community think and providing a link between the community and the Scottish Borders Council. David Tawse has written about his experience of joining Peebles Community Council. David Tawse’s Story
  • Read more about the good things that are happening in the Borders at the moment in the Community Matters News