‘Living in Fear: better outcomes for people with autism and learning disabilities’

Focus group for GPs, Primary Care Staff, and Learning Disability health and social care professionals.

10.00 to 12.30 Monday 15^th September Medway campus of Canterbury Christchurch University

Funded by the Big Lottery Fund Research Programme, Autism London, MCCH and Kent Police worked with a research team from the University of Kent’s Tizard Centre to survey people with learning disabilities and autism, paid and family carers and police officers.

Almost half of all adults with learning disabilities and autism surveyed reported they had suffered some form of disability hate related incident when they were out in the community. A third of those who were living in the Medway area said they had been attacked and victimised, while others surveyed suffered verbal abuse, damage to their property and name calling. For some the impact was serious and long-lasting and the situation became so bad that they felt forced to move home and make other significant changes in their lives.

A key recommendation arising from the research is that guidance should be produced for GPs and other health care professionals carrying out annual health checks, baseline health profiling or other health care in identifying and responding to signs of victimisation in the community.

Please accept this invitation to assist in drafting that guidance by joining a focus group to be held from 10.00 to 12.30 on Monday 15^th September at Medway Campus of Canterbury Christchurch University.

Colin Guest

Research Coordinator

To book your place email Jigsaw@mcch.org.uk

For more information  call Colin Guest 07584 311943 or email c.guest@mcch.org.uk

Please note that for convenience a new page has been created on this blog to host all the information relating to the conference on 18th June, entitled “Addressing Health Inequalities in Learning Disability Week 2014” – see tab at the top of the page. You can find there all the presentations, plus evaluative material, some of which still exists in a raw form – but which we hope to summarise in a more digestible form shortly.

Many thanks again to all who participated – it was a memorable day!

Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex (HEKSS) are eager to meet people and organisations in Kent, Surrey and Sussex who employ registered learning disability nurses (RNLD).

An event is organised for 9th July for HESS to find out from providers of learning disability services what issues they have with the current workforce, which will help planning for the future.

For more details on attending the event click on the picture below to down load the flyer.