by RIchard WestEarlier this week I went to a Valuing People meeting of the 3 forums. These are the National Forum of people with learning difficulties, the Nation Valuing Families Forum and NAGLDE, the National Advisory Group on Learning Disability and Ethnicity. The meeting was to see how we could all work together to 'deliver Valuing People Now'. The 2 directors, Anne Williams and Scott Watkin started the day off by talking about Valuing People and the need for good leaders.
Partnership boards got a bit of a bashing, even from members of the audience who were on one. Examples included the huge difference in the numbers of people living in independent living in different areas and their lack of inclusion of BME members. Scott said partnership boards needed to learn to work in different ways. We were reminded we all needed to work on the national priorities. It was interesting to hear the ideas about having one big advocacy group, I know a lot of groups won't be happy with that, but think it would be a good idea if it was possible.
We talked about working together to make sure NAGLDE and BME people were represented on the other two forums. Other members in the audience saw this gap as well and asked questions about it being unfair. They said NAGLDE should be on the other forums as well. I thought this would be a good way forward, but we need to talk more to them about this to see if we can make it happen.
I talked about hate crime in the afternoon, this has been a worry for me as reports haven't mentioned BME people with learning disabilities and the extra problems we face. The Home Office is publishing a report about this soon that has sections on race and disability. I asked that we make sure they bring the two issues together so we don't fall between any nets!
This seemed like a great start to us all working together. We need to learn from each other and how we can do things in a better way that includes everybody. This will mean some things need to change to make sure ethnicity issues are properly included and with a short 3 year strategy, we don't have much time to do it, but after today I hope we can.
Richard West is chair of NAGLDE - The National Advisory Group on Learning Disability and Ethnicity
We talked about working together to make sure NAGLDE and BME people were represented on the other two forums. Other members in the audience saw this gap as well and asked questions about it being unfair. They said NAGLDE should be on the other forums as well. I thought this would be a good way forward, but we need to talk more to them about this to see if we can make it happen.
I talked about hate crime in the afternoon, this has been a worry for me as reports haven't mentioned BME people with learning disabilities and the extra problems we face. The Home Office is publishing a report about this soon that has sections on race and disability. I asked that we make sure they bring the two issues together so we don't fall between any nets!
This seemed like a great start to us all working together. We need to learn from each other and how we can do things in a better way that includes everybody. This will mean some things need to change to make sure ethnicity issues are properly included and with a short 3 year strategy, we don't have much time to do it, but after today I hope we can.
Richard West is chair of NAGLDE - The National Advisory Group on Learning Disability and Ethnicity
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