Editorial

York People

First Edition

‘a voice for people with a learning difficulty’

York People First 2000

York Eco Business Centre telephone: 01904 479315

Amy Johnson Way yorkpeoplefirst@talktalkbusiness.net

Clifton Moor

York YO30 4AG www.yorkpeoplefirst.co.uk

registered charity number: 1109732

Autumn 2016

Working with Flying Futures

Editorial

Hello Everyone, We hope you had a good

summer. Life is beginning to get a little bit

hectic at People First. People tell us this

often happens after the summer break.

Before our holiday we went to Caedmon

School, again, in Whitby to talk to some

of the younger students.

We then did our production of Oedipus the

King at York St. John.

We attended the Healthwatch AGM which

we felt was a very productive meeting.

Just before our holidays we worked with

some young people who were on a

government citizenship course run by

Flying Futures.

Since our holidays we still haven’t stopped. We’ve

been working with a PCSO making a form that the

police have made into an easy read document.

We’ve been helping York Independent Living

Network with their Safe Place Scheme making

information easy read

Care and Treatment Reviews (CTRs)

CTRs are for people with a learning

disability and started in October 2014.

They are part of NHS England’s goal to

make people’s care better.

CTRs aim to stop people being admitted

to specialist Learning Disability and

Mental Health hospitals when they don’t

need to be there.

They also try to make sure that when

people are admitted to specialist

hospitals, it is for a short time.

CTRs are not for when people go into

general hospitals because they are

physically hurt or ill.

Background

This CTR policy builds on the work of the

Improving Lives Team and on what we

learned from using CTRs from October

2014 to March 2015.

The aim is to make CTRs ‘business as

usual’ in England.

CTRs are person-centred and based on

the needs of the person. This means

that people with a learning disability

and their family are included in looking

at and asking questions about a

person’s care and treatment.

CTRs make sure that:

people with a learning disability and their

family are listened to and are equal

partners in their care and treatment.

people’s care and treatment plans say

clearly what they are trying to improve and

how this should happen.

people get the right care and treatment at

the right time to be able to stay in their own

home whenever possible.

people only become inpatients in Learning

Disability and Mental Health hospitals if that

is the only place they can safely receive

care and treatment.

everyone works together to help the person

move back to the community as soon as

possible.

Why do we need CTRs?

For many years governments have been

closing long-stay hospitals and providing

services in the community.

There are many people with a learning

disability that are still in specialist

hospitals without an agreed date for

when they will leave.

We know there is a need for the right

support for people to live in their own

home or community, in a place that is

not a hospital.

NHS England has developed the CTRs as

a way of checking on people’s care

and treatment and to involve all parties

in the process.

They aim to overcome any blocks to

people getting the right care in the right

place at the right time.

Why do we need the CTR policy, guidance and tools?

Policy, guidance and tools help people with

a learning disability and their family to

understand and be part of CTRs.

Safeguards make sure that professionals are

registered and have checks for any criminal

records.

Everybody involved in a CTR should be clear

about their roles and what happens before,

during, and after the CTR.

The NHS and its partners are using CTRs to ask

questions and sometimes challenge the care

given to a person to make sure they have the

best quality of life.

When does a CTR happen?

A CTR happens when a person is at risk of

being admitted to a specialist hospital.

The CTR looks at other things that can be

done to prevent the person going into hospital

when its not necessary.

If the person does have to go into hospital,

the CTR checks their assessment, treatment

and the plan for them being discharged.

CTRs makes sure a person is not admitted to

hospital when they don’t need to be. It

makes sure that hospital stays are as short as

possible.

People at risk of admission to hospital

Local services are often aware of those

people with a learning disability who are at

risk of being admitted to hospital.

Long stays in hospital can be unhelpful to

the person and their families. They can lead

to the person losing touch with their

community.

The commissioner will work with local providers

to identify those people who are at risk of

admission.

This will help to keep track of people’s care, look

at gaps in service and decide how best to

support people to live in the community.

These are some of the reasons a person may be

at risk of being admitted to hospital:

Life changes such as the death of someone

close

Having been abused

Unstable or untreated mental illness

Drug and alcohol problems

Admissions to hospital in the past

Behaving in ways that challenge services

Being supported by a changing staff team

Having no fixed address

Being in contact with police and courts

Having no family carers or advocates

Having no plans to help move from children’s

services into adult learning disability services

Being in specialist residential schools

Having recently been discharged from a long

stay hospital

?

So a person is at risk:

where they place themselves or other

people at risk of harm

where their placement or tenancy is at risk

of breakdown and this would put the

person or other people at risk

where hospital admission is being seen as

an option

There are still 3000 people with learning disabilities

in hospitals. Care and Treatment Reviews are

there to bring people, who have been in

hospitals back into the community as quickly as

possible. Also if a person needs specialist

treatment that they are not in hospital for too long.

It is now a long time since Winterbourne View

and things are happening really slowly. This is

okay if it results in good services.

People with learning disabilities are taking part

in Care and Treatment Reviews as ‘Experts by

Experience’.

This is just a short introduction to Care and

Treatment Reviews. We’ll tell you a little bit

more in our next magazine. It’s a lot to get

your head round.

Review of the BFG

by Claire Dobson

On the 16th August 2016 me and Becca went

to the Reel Cinema went to see the film of the

Big Friendly Giant.

We both thought it was a very good film. My

best bit of the film was when the Big Friendly

Giant went to see the Queen to ask her for

her help to get rid of the big giants.

My next best bit was all the words like

Snozzwangels.

It also reminded me about other books what

Roald Dahl wrote like Charlie and the Chocolate

factory and the Twits he wrote.

We would recommend anyone to go and

watch it . As it is a very good film the actors

and actresses play very good parts in the film.

We also liked all the different words that the

BFG said for example Snozzcoumber, Frob

Scottle, they made us both laugh, all in all it is

an excellent film to watch!!

Animal

Wordsearch

ELEPHANT TIGER HORSE KOALA BEAR

PANDA CHIMPANZEE FOX DONKEY

B L U G P E Y R K J Y Q B K H O F S P N

A F X D W Y J V G L X P M I R A W H L G

H C U F O S K I T E Q V O T T E R L G J

S O B V L L A M A T Z A U M P K H B T U

D N Y E F Q N B P I K N S V X L W V X O

R P G T B L G I R A F F E T P Y M E A Z

C P K G D R A W Q X N V J H I T F S H X

H U J Z E B R A Z U L Y W A U G D H N C

I S R O F D O V C W C X P M O N K E Y B

M O H I P P O P O T A M U S J F Y E P S

P Z I M Y R P L W D T R F T O P N P C H

A E N K F S L V I U B H Y E N A Z Y H M

N V O C R P I G P J T G N R O N C I K H

Z S C L U N O W Y R Q O K P N D G S R I

E L E P H A N T A D K K O A L A B E A R

E W R P R Q S I M O I G V C P U A V T N

L R U R U D O G N N E W T Q I P B N X G

W M S U Y O P E B K V R O H K F O X L J

N U C B R H O R S E J Q R A J P O B Q P

Q V P K G M G T K Y C O U Y R X N L D X

HIPPOPTAMUS GIRAFFE LION COW

RHINOCERUS

WOLF KANGAROO

ZEBRA MONKEY SHEEP

PIG DOG MOUSE BABOON

OTTER LLAMA HYENA HAMSTER

Chris Lee’s Obituary

Chris singing with us at his and Pauline’s

50th Wedding Anniversary

It was with great sadness that we have learnt about the

death of Chris Lee. We know that Chris supported people

with Learning Disabilities for many years. Chris Lee was a

great friend to everyone who he knew. Chris supported us

and helped us all at York People First, by helping us with

fundraising, and giving us lift’s to jobs that we did to

Tadcaster Grammar School etc. Everyone enjoyed his

laughter. We have lost a true friend.

Time for me to leave you, I won't say goodbye;

Look for me in rainbows, high up in the sky.

In the evening sunset, when all the world is through,

Just look for me and love me, and I'll be close to you.

York Safe Places Scheme: Information Sheet

A Safe Place is where anyone who might need

a little more help and support, when they are

out and about in the community, can call in to

get help and support.

Safe Places could include:

a shop a café

a library customer services

a community centre

The Widgit Safe Places symbol is being used all

over the country so that people can recognise

a safe place wherever they are.

Safe Place Scheme

Information Sheet

The Safe Places symbol will be on a

sticker and stuck on a window or door

where you can see it.

A lot of Safe Places Schemes have a

card as well. You can put important

information on the card. You don’t need

a card to use the Safe Places Scheme.

The York Independent Living Network have been

funded by York’s Adult Social Care to develop a

Safe Places Scheme.

The Independent Living Network have put

together a steering group of representatives

from different community groups. They will

make a plan to give to the Council and the

Police.

The steering group also have to advise how

the Safe Places Scheme might be funded.

The aim is to launch the scheme by the end

of 2016 if the Council and the Police approve

the steering groups ideas.

Marije Davidson is managing the project on

behalf of YILN and chairs the steering group.

She is working in partnership with June Peacock,

one of the community facilitators.

So far the steering group have talked about

what the Safe Places Scheme might look like.

At the next meeting we will be making a plan

to help us decide how the York Safe Places

Scheme might look.

More information about other Safe Place

Schemes can be found on the Widgit website:

http://www.widgit.com/safeplacescheme/

At People First we have been helping to make

information easy read. We have used Widgit

quite a lot because the Widgit safe places

logo is being used everywhere so people can

find safe places wherever they go.

There is a lot of work to do. Good safe places

need to be found. It isn’t any good if

something has happened to you, where you

are scared or lost, and there’s only 3 safe

places and you can’t find one.

Also we need to interest those staff who work

with people in there own home. You can’t

take someone to town or wherever once to

show them the logo. They will need to be

shown several times to reinforce what you need to do.

At the beginning of August we worked with

some young people on the National Citizens

Service. We were involved with them on

Phase 3 of their challenge. We had set them

the task of developing a game to teach people

how to use the ‘Safe Place Scheme.

They not only had to design the game but find

out who would make the game and how much

it would cost.

They designed two games, one a board

game and one a card game. They went

out and visited many shops and cafes etc.

They also had a stall to raise a bit of money.

We also have information about where to

get the card made.

On the Friday of the week we took them to

Once Seen. Matt and Josh did a workshop

with us, it was good fun. and one of the

best days of the week.

We want to continue the project making a

Game about the Safe Place Scheme

because it would be a really good way for

people to learn how it works. We’ll use the

young people’s idea as our starting point. We’ll

start in January because we need to raise some

cash as well.

Once Seen Theatre Company

Oedipus went very well and we were

all pleased with our performance.

There were lots of new challenges for us.

We were not able to perform at Upstage

and so Matt arranged for us to hire one

of the theatres at York St.John. He took

us to see the space the week before

production week. There was a lot of work

for Matt and Josh to do to prepare the

space for our production. There was also

a lot for us to think about as well - where

to leave costumes and props, where to

get changed!!

It all worked out really well in the end.

Another challenge was that Matt and

Josh were doing the lighting, the sound

and playing the films. This meant that

the cast were entirely dependent on

themselves for support.

We were very grateful to Morrison’s for

their grant. It really made a difference

to our performance.

Here is Michael Scott’s review of Oedipus:

On Friday 22 and Saturday 23 July Once Seen

Theatre Company preformed Oedipus the King

which was a story based on Oedipus

Rex at York St John University in

Theatre 1. I helped by

selling the programmes.

I thought Oedipus the King was

performed very well. The performances

really flowed. There was performances

at 7:30pm on Friday 22 July and 4:00pm

and 7:30pm on Saturday 23 July. I

thought the actors got very confident

and got better as the performances went on.

Saturday night was electric!!!

It was disappointing the plays were not

very well attended after we publicised the

play through posters, through our website

and Facebook and Twitter in the run up to

the performances. I thought the films

projected on the big screen had a very

good storyline to go with the play. The

effects were really good. The scene where

Phil got stabbed was really realistic. The

story really flowed.

Becca did really well continuing her words

when Peter went off at the wrong time.

Everyone did really well to talk into the

microphones when they were very high up.

We had very good feedback from

everyone who came to see Oedipus the

King.

Once Seen Theatre Company worked

really hard for all the planning and all

the preparation work they did which

made all the performances a great

success.

On Friday 25th November at 6.30 pm and

Saturday 26th November at 7.30 pm we

will be performing our own special

Christmas production of Aladdin.

The reason that we’re finishing early on

Friday is because Andy and Matt are

going to Brave the Shave at the Students Union

at the University of York St. John.

My holiday to Pontins in Southport

by Eileen Stroughair

On the 5th of September 2016 until the 9th

of September 2016 I went with two other

of my friend’s and two staff to Pontin’s in

Southport just past Liverpool.

The weather was a mixture of ‘sunshine and

shower’. We went self catering. We visited

lots of place’s including, a garden which

was very nice.

We all went into Southport and we had

fish and chips. We stayed in a chalet.

We visited a model village. I went on the 2p

machines .

While we were at Pontin’s we had

entertainment every night which was very

good. On the Wednesday while we were at

Pontin’s, we went swimming, we also went

for a walk on the beach in Southport.

All in all we had a really good holiday!

History Club by Andy Pollin

The last history club, before the

holidays, we met up at the Balloon

Tree. Some of us treated ourselves to

breakfast whilst we were there!!

We talked about our future project

which is going to be about the Iron

Age. We discussed about working

with John Kenny’s other groups. We

talked about our role in the project.

We will be helping to clean ‘finds’.

Also we are going to be filmed

acting out life in the Iron Age.

The project won’t start until the New

Year because of having to raise

funding. To fill our time, by the time

you read this, we will have visited the

Waterways Museum in Goole. So

more about that next time.

We meet up every first Monday of the

month. We have learnt such a lot about

the past, its such an adventure. If you

think it would be something you would

enjoy then give us a ring at York People

First.

Obituary of Rebecca Plover Arnup

Rebecca Plover Arnup, age 56, differently abled

daughter to Sally and Mick Arnup, died at home August

14th 2016.

Some of us who had worked with Rebecca

at Yearsley Bridge Centre were able to join

others from her family and home for her

funeral at Holtby Church.

It was a Quaker service so everybody was

invited to share their memories of Rebecca.

Everybody had really fun memories of

Rebecca it was great that everybody had

such positive memories!

Sandra said that she remembered when a student

left a big container of talcum powder just handy

for Rebecca. It was like a skating rink, nobody

could get near to Rebecca to retrieve it!!

People First campaigned with Sally, Rebecca and

the family to stop the closure of Yearsley Bridge.

Slow Cooker Easy Chicken

Ingredients:

skinless chicken thighs

sliced carrots

sliced parsnips

chicken stock cube

half a pint of water

Method:

Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker.

Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours

Kate Hardcastle’s Top 10 Again!

1. Brown Girl in the Ring - Boney M

When I play this I think of our chairperson,

Becca Cooper

2. The Birdie Song - Black Lace

The song makes me feel happy and

reminds me of birthdays

3. Red, Red Wine - U.B 40

After I’ve had a glass of red wine I’m able

to relax

4. Come on Eileen - Dexy’s Midnight Runners

I like to ‘wind up’ my friend Eileen

5. You’ll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the

Pacemakers

This always reminds me of the summer

holidays

6. Bright Eyes - Simon and Garfunkel

This was my Grandma’s favourite song

7. By the Rivers of Babylon - Boney M

I play this at home and do exercises to it

8. Reach for the Stars - S Club 7

I like to sing along to this song

9. Right Said Fred - Bernard Cribbins

This gets me in the mood to go to People

First

10. I Like to do the Conga - Black Lace

I like to get the line like on a train

Jokes

Q: Where do cows go for there holidays

A: Moo York

Q: Why did the strawberry go out with a plum

A: Because he could not find a date

People with Learning Disabilities are Invisible

For some time now we have thought that

the views of people with learning

disabilities are no longer considered. So,

we were pleased to read the Brandon

Trusts Chief Executive, Lucy Hurst-Brown

had similar concerns to ourselves.

She wonders whether the model of care

for people with learning disabilities in the

past 20 years has been got wrong and a

new one is needed.

Watching films like the ‘Silent Minority’ and

listening to what people told us about

hospitals we knew they were terrible places

to be. But many thousands of people with

learning disabilities were shut away in these

places.

At first things changed, people became

independent, lived in their own home, were

able to go shopping, go on holiday, going to

the pub. Everything was moving in the right

direction but where has itall ended up today?

Lucy Hurst Brown commented:

25 years on, we like to believe that we live

in an enlightened, modern and democratic

society of equals where everybody is valued

and involved, yet there are some members

who have no voice. This horrific fact

miserably remains the overarching story of

people with learning disabilities in the UK.

Here people with learning disabilities are

invisible; 93 out of every 100 have no job,

many experience ‘hate and mate

crime’ and over 3000 are still literally

locked up within notorious ‘so called

‘Assessment and Treatment Units’.

All too often they are not to be found

where the rest of us are; doing the stuff

of life that the rest of us are doing.

And … our limited exposure has led to

most of us not even knowing what a

learning disability is and worse still filling

in the gaps with a range of unhelpful,

ill-informed and negative stereotypes.

At a conference held for people with learning

disabilities the biggest issues for the was

lonliness, the desire to develop relationships

beyond paid staff and families. Many people

with learning disabilities do not have an

integrated life with a wide range of rich

relationships. Most people are physically

living in their communities but all too often

they remain isolated.

Many learning disabled people will only

interact with those paid to care for them.

We all need to see and know people who

are interested in us, for us, not because

they are paid to look after us.

We’ve talked a lot at People First over the

last few weeks about the things Lucy Hurst-Brown

has said. Sometimes it does seem as if the

people who support us own us.

To help people become part of their

communities needn’t cost a lot of money,

we just need to talk. It’s the responsibility

of all us. We need to create a society that

is ready to change.