Event: Next steps for transforming caring for people with learning disabilities (Jan. 2017: London, UK)

Event Title: Next Steps For Transforming Caring For People With Learning Disabilities: Funding, Integration and Community Care

Date: Friday, 27th January 2017

Place: Central London

– This event is CPD certified –

With local Transforming Care Partnerships (TCPs) beginning their work, this timely seminar will provide an opportunity to assess future policy priorities for people with learning disabilities across health and social care.

Delegates will consider the implementation of NHS England’s Building the Right Support plan, with local plans proposed by TCPs – collaborations between Clinical Commissioning Groups, local authorities and specialised commissioners – due to be assessed against countrywide objectives, with the aim of, by 2019, reducing the reliance on inpatient care and establishing a national service delivery model for commissioners and providers.

Further sessions focus on the impact of population-based healthcare, via new Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), on care for people with learning disabilities, the impact of new inspection methodologies announced in the CQC’s five-year strategy on the regulation of care, and priorities for personalising care in light of the national rollout of the Integrated Personal Commissioning programme – as well as improving access to primary care for people with learning disabilities.

A service user from CHANGE has agreed to deliver an address at the seminar.

Professor Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer, NHS England has also agreed to deliver an address at this seminar.

Sue Darker, Operations Director, Learning Disabilities and Mental Health, Hertfordshire County Council; Sharon Jeffreys, Head of Commissioning – Learning Disabilities, NHS South West Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group; Dr Theresa Joyce, National Professional Advisor on Learning Disabilities, CQC; Sarah Maguire, Director, Learning Disability England (formerly Housing & Support Alliance) and Managing Director, Choice Support; Dr Neil Ralph, Programme Manager for Mental Health and Learning Disability, Health Education England and; Jim Thomas, Programme Head – Workforce Innovation, Skills for Care have also agreed to speak. 

Lord Adebowale, Non-Executive Director, NHS England and Chief Executive Officer, Turning Point has kindly agreed to chair a session at this seminar.

 

Westminster Health Forum – Improving care for people with learning disabilities (May, 2016: London, UK)

Seminar Title: Improving Care for People With Learning Disabilities – Commissioning, Regulation And Reducing Hospital Admissions

Date: Wednesday, 11^th May 2016

Place: Sixty One Whitehall, London SW1A 2ET

 **This event is CPD certified**

 Guest of Honour: Dr Dominic Slowie, National Clinical Director for Learning Disabilities, NHS England and Chair, North East and Cumbria Learning Disability Network

This timely seminar will provide an opportunity to assess future policy priorities for people with learning disabilities and/or autism across health and social care. Delegates will consider key issues outlined in NHS England, ADASS and the LGA’s Building the Right Support plan, which aims to reduce the reliance on inpatient care, establish a new service model by 2019 and create joined-up Transforming Care Partnerships for health and social care commissioners locally. Further sessions focus on plans outlined in the Department of Health response to the No Voice Unheard, No Right Ignored consultation, which included proposals for a named social worker and potential amendments to regulations in the Mental Health Act 1983. The agenda also looks at next steps for developing the workforce, and challenges for integrating and personalising care for people with learning disabilities through the use of personal budgets and the Integrated Personal Commissioning programme.

For more information, including our speakers, please click here.

Free Performance: Wicked Fish – From There to Here

Wicked Fish is a theatre and creative arts company from Liverpool, comprising five Disabled People, three of whom have Learning Difficulties. From There To Here is a new and developing piece of theatre by Wicked Fish.  It looks at the lives of three inmates of the Royal Albert Institution, Lancaster,  around 1910.  Their experiences become starting point for a closer look at attitudes to people who have learning difficulties today, and how far we think we have come in supporting them.

Performances are free and there is no need to book seats in advance:

Tuesday, 20 January, 6.30pm Valley Community Theatre, Netherley
Friday, 24 January, 2pm Liverpool Central Library, City Centre
Saturday, 30 January, 2.30pm Museum of Liverpool, Albert Dock.

For more information see http://wickedfish.org.uk/ or email wickedfish97@hotmail.com

Event: Learning Disability & Ethnicity Conference

Learning Disability & Ethnicity Conference

When: 28th March 2014

Where: London, UK (at the Osmani Trust, Osmani Centre, 58 Underwood Road, London, E1 5AW)

This one day conference will critically examine the role of Ethnicity and its impact on Learning Disability and consider themes, perspectives and debates surroundings this area, so we can become more inclusive of these factors in practice and service delivery.

This one day conference will bring together clinicians who have experience in providing health and social care interventions across fields.  Learning points and good practice will be shared. The challenges experienced and possible limitations will also discussed via anonymised case vignettes.

Programme of the Day

• 9.00 – 9.20: Registration, Tea and Coffee
• 9.20 – 9.40: Professor Zenobia Nadirshaw (Chair & Introduction) ~ Double Discrimination: A Race Against Time for People with Learning Disabilities from BME Communities.
• 9.40 – 10.30: Professor Eric Emerson ~ Ethnicity & Learning Disability: A Public Health Perspective.
• 10.30 – 11.20: Dr. Sabiha Azmi ~ Developing and Delivering Psychological services for Adults with Learning Disabilities from Minority Ethnic Communities: A Case Study.
• 11.20 – 11.40: Tea & Coffee
• 11.40 – 12.30: Bridget Fisher ~ What Would Make A Difference? Listening and Responding to The Views of People with Learning Disabilities From Ethnic Minorities and Their Family Carers.
• 12.30 – 12.50: Morning Q & A
• 12.50 – 1.50: Lunch & Networking
• 1.50 – 2.40: Professor Raghu Raghavan ~ Ethnicity and Learning Disability: Research and Its Implications For Policy and Practice.
• 2.40 – 3.00: Tea & Coffee 
• 3.00 – 3.50: Professor Sab Bhaumik ~ “Mind the Gap” – Accessing Psychiatric Services for Minority Ethnic Adults with Learning Disability: The Problems and The Solutions.
• 3.50 – 4.10: Afternoon Q&A
• 4.10 – 4.30: Plenary, Closure & Evaluation sheets

Who: This conference will be relevant to all interested in this field as well as all professionals, including those from Local Authorities and NHS trusts across the UK, Psychiatrists, GPs, Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Counsellors, Early Intervention Teams, CPN’s, OT’s, Social Workers, Chaplains, Community Faith Leaders & Healers, Equality Leads, Community Development Workers, Service User Representatives, Charities, Third Sector, Educational Establishments, Academics and Policy makers.

Conference Contact: Ahmed Qureshi (conference co-ordinator). Tel. 07540 356 526. Email us on: info@bmehealth.org or visit us on www.bmehealth.org

CFP: ‘Living With Social Categories: Ethnicity, Mental Health, and Learning Disability in An Age Of Austerity’ Conference (June, UK)

Title: Living With Social Categories: Ethnicity, Mental Health, and Learning Disability in An Age Of Austerity

Date: 18th June 2012

Place: The Open University, Milton Keynes

Key Note Speaker: Professor James Nazroo (University of Manchester, UK)

Chair: Professor Richard Jenkins (University of Sheffield, UK)

Brief Description: This one day interdisciplinary conference seeks to re-ignite debates about the lived consequences of the category of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) in statutory services. Using mental health (MH) and Learning Disability (LD) as reference points the conference will explore fresh understandings and theorisations for how BME plays out within the care/control function of the state. Conference organisers acknowledge that ‘Learning Disability’ is contested by advocacy groups; however it is employed here to reflect its use in statutory services. 

The conference is hosted by the Faculty of Health and Social Care (The Open University) and the Race and Ethnicity Study Group (British Sociological Association).

Background: Notwithstanding recent advancements, there remains a disjuncture between theory and praxis in the sociology literature on ethnicity. While it is now accepted that ethnicity is an ontologically unstable category (Alexander 2006), writers arguably over-emphasise ethnicity qua ethnicity at the expense of material and psychic consequences of ethnic categorisations (Carter and Fenton, 2011). However there is long-standing evidence that the category BME has consequences for lived experience in statutory services where the state’s care/control function is thrown into sharp focus. Consequently although less likely to receive welfare services, BMEs are over-represented in the coercive aspects of ‘caring’ services. In MH and LD for instance, some BME groups are less likely to access preventative services but more likely to be detained for involuntary treatment (Mir et al, 2001; Care Quality Commission and National Mental Health Development Unit, 2011). Thus ‘[p]aradoxically, they receive the MH services they don’t want, but not the ones they do or might want’ (Keating and Robertson, 2004, p446). While the applied literature has helpfully evidenced these inequalities, it struggles to satisfactorily operationalise ethnicity to reflect current substantive understandings of fluidity (Nazroo, 2011; Salway et al 2009, 2011). The present age of austerity is likely to exacerbate longstanding inequalities, hence the timely need to refocus on the sociological processes which lead to embodiment of social categories such as BME, MH, and LD.      

We welcome papers from postgraduate and early career researchers that address the following themes:

• What sociological theories are useful in explaining/could explain the disproportionate representation of BME in MH and LD services?
• What are the possibilities, limitations and challenges of using ethnic categorisations to describe and explain inequalities in the provision of statutory services? Is an integrative (or intersectional) approach more useful?
• Interrogating the category of BME: Although widely used in applied studies, BME is rarely explored critically. What is the history of the category; whose interests does it serve?
• Spaces of care/control: ‘Space’ could be geographical, virtual, material, and mental – how is care/control operationalised; what are the mechanisms?
• How can the gap between theory and practice be reduced? Is it an issue of dissemination? If so, how can this be bridged?

Deadline for abstract submission: 1st May 2012

BSA members and non-members, please contact Godfred Boahen (g.f.boahen@open.ac.uk) to reserve a place at the conference