Training materials

No Secrets – an Adult Protection Video

Suffolk Vulnerable Adults Protection Committee, £75 including
p&p, Contact Bill Nicol on 01379 672718.

This video promises more than it delivers, write staff at Voice UK,
a national charity working with people with learning difficulties
who have been abused or the victims of crime.

The opening statements drive home the message that we all have
responsibilities to protect vulnerable people and that we can
either speak up or say nothing.

However, it is with the aim of the video that we have some
difficulty. The main purpose of this video is both to raise
awareness and further our understanding of adult protection issues.
If this video were used as a short “public information” film then
it would work very well indeed. People would undoubtedly be
impressed by the appearance of such famous actors – Dame Judi
Dench, Joss Ackland and Simon Callow. But if it is supposed to be
for “front-line staff in particular” then perhaps they could have
spared us the repetitive poetry and arty lighting and got on with
telling us what abuse is, how to recognise the signs and symptoms
and what to do about it.

The notes that go with the video are mostly written in the kind of
language so beloved of social services departments: “It is
imperative that all staff have an awareness of their role should
they have to respond to an abusive allegation or act.”

The key messages from the video are set out in bullet points too
and these do the job very well.

Suffolk Vulnerable Adults Protection Committee is to be
congratulated for putting this together – and for recruiting such
big theatrical guns – and for showing that they are very serious
about adult protection.

So it does feel a bit churlish to say that less art and more fact
would have hit the spot for us. And, therefore, possibly for
“front-line staff in particular”.