Taken by Brian Aldrich
Photography
On the 6th
November, Greenwich Learning Disability
Research Net attended and presented at
the ‘Staying Safe,
For People with Learning Disabilities’ event at Charlton
House as part of safeguarding month. Research net are a
group of volunteers and
staff who come together to create
projects to improve services and make things
better for
people with Learning Disabilities.
We are a group of Oxleas
Volunteers; Kevin, Emma, Ron, David, Richard O,
Richard F,
Donna and Laura. Staff members Rachel, Amelia, Des and
Annelise from
Greenwich Community Learning Disability
Team also came to help. This event was
the perfect
opportunity to launch the group’s most recent project – a
‘Keeping
Safe, for People with Learning Disabilities’ leaflet. A
lot of people with
Learning Disabilities feel unsafe in
Greenwich and this leaflet is designed to
make them feel
safer.
We arrived
early to make the most of the tea, coffee and
biscuits on offer and have a
quick chat about our plan for the
day. We saw lots of familiar faces and it was
great to catch
up with them.
Taken by Brian Aldrich
Photography
We then
heard about the Safe places scheme – which we
had included in our leaflet! This
is a great scheme that
provides safe places in the community where people with
Learning Disabilities can go if they get into trouble or feel
unsafe,
frightened or bullied.
It was then our turn to present. We all took it
in turns to
explain what Research net is and what it is we do. I think we
all
felt a bit nervous at the beginning but we all know our
group so well and the
important work that we do that once we
started talking it actually went really
well! It was great that
everyone in the group had the opportunity to say their bit
as
well.
It was great
to have an audience of such varied people –
from people with a range of
Learning Disabilities to the Fire
Brigade to Trading Standards.
After a quick
break (and more tea and coffee of course!)
there were four workshops for the
attendees to participate in.
The four workshops were:
- Fire Brigade and Police
- Research Net (us!)
- Trading Standards
- Safeguarding
We had
decided to split into two different groups so half of us
could run the workshops
and the other half could participate
in the other workshops and then we would
swap over so
everyone got to do a bit of everything!
In our workshops we had the opportunity to talk
more about
our leaflet and answer any questions. We talked about how
we had
prepared for our leaflet and thought about the
different worries people with
Learning Disabilities have.
Some of the worries we talked about were: Mate/Hate
crime,
keeping money safe, how to keep safe at home and in the
community and
lots more. We told the group about how we
had interviewed a police officer and
the head of safeguarding
for Greenwich, in order to get the answer to some of
our
questions. We also talked about what we heard learnt
regarding which is the
right number to ring in different
situations, should it be 999, 101 or 111?
This can be
confusing for everyone so
we explained what an emergency
and that you should always ring 999 if you’re
not sure!
In the other
workshops, the fire brigade gave us tips on how
to keep safe at home (everyone
make sure you check your
fire alarm every 2 weeks!) and Trading Standards
taught us
all about how to avoid being scammed (never give your bank
details to
anyone!). We even got a sticker to put in our
window to stop unwanted people
coming to our door. We
enjoyed these workshops as we could tell them things
from
our perspective as well and the difficulties people with
Learning
Disabilities may encounter.
At the end
the audience were given the opportunity to
feedback and “Have Our Say”. We all
said that we would like
to do an event like this again in the future so more
people
with Learning Disabilities can feel safe and work together
better with
people like the Police.
Everyone at
Research Net had a great day and we were so
glad to be able to share our
leaflet that we have worked so
hard on. We hope to showcase our leaflet at more
events in
the future so watch this space!
Take a look
at our website if you’d like to see more or if you’d
like a copy of our leaflet:
Kevin,
Emma, Ron, David, Richard O, Richard F, Donna and Laura
Rachel,
Amelia, Des and Annelise
Greenwich ALD Research Net
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