Kent and Medway Learning Disability Strategy 2024

The Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board will be holding a number of online meetings to help shape the strategy for people with learning disabilities and autistic people in the county. 

These events have been developed with local people to be accessible and inclusive to all.

Places can be booked by emailing makingadifference@kent.gov.uk by Tuesday 1 October 2024 

Two dates are available to book:-

Date:

Thursday 9 October 2024           

Time:

10.30am – 12pm

Location:

Virtual meeting on Zoom  

 

 

Date:

Tuesday 15 October 2024                

Time:

2pm – 3:30pm

Location:

Virtual meeting on Zoom  

For more details please click here.

Books Beyond Words – ‘Loving Babies’ Book Launch

Kent Surrey Sussex Learning Disability Community of Practice event will be hosting the new Beyond Words book launch at the event at Kingston University on 1st December.

Beyond Words is delighted to be launching the second word-free picture book in their series on maternity and parenting. Loving Babies is the much-anticipated follow-up book to last year’s Having a Baby. Expertly co-created and trialled by professionals and experts by experience, Loving Babies is a picture story showing the realities and triumphs of early years’ parenting.

The book is designed to be used by people with learning disabilities or who find pictures easier to understand than words. It depicts two different households caring for and loving their new children. Loving Babies and Having a Baby can be used together to open conversations about pregnancy, parenting, and having children.

At the event, Baroness Hollins will be presenting this new publication and in their will be a lunch time book club to explore this new publication. 

Loving Babies Book Beyond words cover

 

The Chief Nursing Officer for England is developing a strategy that will set out a strategic direction for nurses: Learning Disability Nurses SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Dear colleague, at the CNO Summit last month, Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England, committed to developing a strategy that will set out a strategic direction for nurses, midwives and nursing associates across health and social care for the next 3-5 years. We’re keen to ensure the strategy is developed with, and by, the professionals to reflect their experiences and aspirations. It is important that we define the future role of nursing and midwifery in leading and delivering high-quality care across health and social care.

This needs to be a strategy developed and owned by all nurses, midwives and nursing associates and it will be informed by the strategic drivers in England including government policy and the NHS Long Term Plan as well as international evidence.

We have launched an engagement exercise to capture views on relevant priority areas and key enablers. This will be based around a small number of high-level priority themes to frame the discussion which have been developed in partnership with my senior nursing team. The themes are:

  • Workforce and people
  • System leadership and integration
  • Health equity, prevention and population health management
  • Person centred practice and improving outcomes

Your views are important and we would encourage you to get involved by responding to this survey. More information, as well as the link to the survey is available here: https://www.good-governance.org.uk/teamCNO

We would also really welcome you sharing this across your own local networks so that they are aware of this work and have an opportunity to share their thoughts with us too.

Best Wishes

David Harling | National Deputy Director for Learning Disability Nursing

National Nursing Directorate of the Chief Nursing Officer for England  

NHS England & NHS Improvement  

Twitter: @DavidHarling1  

Books Beyond Words prize presentation

As a part of the launch of the Kent Surrey Sussex Learning Disability Community of Practice in June, we offered an incentive for participants to complete the electronic evaluation forms.

This period has now closed and we are beginning to sort through your feedback, more details of this process can be found by clicking here. If you’d like to be involved in this process please email us at info@ldcop.org.uk

Through a process of random selection of all those that submitted evaluations we are pleased to advise that Lindsey Griffiths from Sussex Partnership Trust has won a six month free subscription to Books Beyond Words application.

For more information on the application, click on the picture below.

BBW pic