Training materials

Our Voice in Our Future

Michael Turner, Phil Brough and R B Williams-Findlay. Joseph
Rowntree Foundation. Available to download from www.jrf.org.uk

This thorough report came out of the Shaping Our Lives project
which involved service users in a debate on the future of social
care, writes Polly Mortimer, former editor of Pendulum, the
magazine of the Manic Depression Fellowship. However, the responses
were woefully thin in numbers. Some 1,500 booklets were sent to 300
user groups, but only 26 were returned. A one-day conference in
Sheffield attracted only 20 delegates. But many useful things
emerged. There is a desperate need for an injection of
professionalism, a need for a national user group with teeth and
clout (like Carers UK), for holistic cross-sector services, for
peer support and for more day-to-day opportunities.

What if…? Speaking up and Speaking out

Marion Dakin for Solihull Adult Protection Committee. Pavilion
Publishing. £85 plus £8.50 p&p. Contact 01273 623222
or e-mail info@pavpub.com

This adult protection training pack is intended for “anyone whose
job might bring them into contact with vulnerable adults”, writes
independent self advocacy worker, Peter Dawson. The material has
large print, straightforward language and is given in bite-sized
chunks. It aims to educate and inform workers in services who might
otherwise be complacent, ignorant or just unobservant. The fact
that abuse is often undetected, and that the abused are so often
not listened to, dismissed or contradicted makes this material
important and potentially of significant use. This material with
its self-study component and NVQ relevance will be an asset to
workers in all agencies. I wonder whether the writer would consider
producing something similarly impressive for service users?