Ensuring that children and young people with speech, language and communications needs (SLCN) are fully integrated into the community is vital to their future development. I CAN Communicate has been talking to two children’s community organisations, The Scout Association and the Girls Brigade England and Wales (GBEW), about how they encourage children with SLCN to get involved. Read the article here.
New in Books Beyond Words: Rosie gets in shape
Rose lives on her own and she has picked up some bad habits about eating and taking exercise. Her energy is low and she gets tired easily. When her doctor tells her that her weight is causing health problems, she decides to get in shape. We follow Rose through the struggles and triumphs of her weight loss journey, the new activities she takes up, and the good friends and support she finds along the way.
Losing weight is hard for everyone. Obesity is common, and people with learning disabilities are more likely than other people to become obese, and at a younger age. Rose Gets in Shape can help people to talk about their own experiences, cope with setbacks, and plan how to make lasting positive changes to their diet and activity level, improving their health and quality of life for the long term.
Community care: Court rules children of learning-disabled mother can be adopted despite criticising council
Judge highlights lack of training and protocol around parents with learning disabilities but stresses support must not become ‘substituted parenting’
National Audit Office:Local support for people with a Learning disability
Good progress has been made by the Department of Health and NHS England in setting up a programme to close hospital beds for people with a learning disability, but the programme is not yet on track to achieve value for money. The report examines how the NHS in England and local authorities seek to improve the lives of the 129,000 people aged 18 to 64 who use local authority learning disability support services.
Multi-Agency Learning Review Following The Murder of Bijan Ebrahimi
Following the murder of Mr Bijan Ebrahimi in July 2013, Safer Bristol Executive Board decided to conduct a review of the management of circumstances leading to his death by all agencies and organisations involved in order to elicit any lessons that need to be learned. The review process was identified in order to employ a straightforward and un-bureaucratic approach to identifying the key points of learning for all the organisations involved and stimulate any necessary action with the minimum of delay.
This report examines agency and organisation responses and support given to Mr Bijan Ebrahimi, a resident of Brislington, Bristol, since arriving in the city and before his death. The objectives of this review are to examine the involvement and actions of individual organisations that had contact with Mr Ebrahimi before his death in order to extract learning, improve practice wherever necessary and prevent future incidents of this type.
NB. The review was originally completed in January 2014 but has been updated to reflect the findings of an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and associated representations made by members of Mr Ebrahimi’s family.
