My name is Rob. I have been working with people with learning disabilities since 1989 which may sound a long time to most people but seems to have rushed past, to me. But no matter how long you work with people we never stop learning.
For the last nine years I have been working for a charity in Coventry (I moved to Witney in 2010) but commute to Coventry every day).
My work involves assessing providers for people with learning disabilities in regards to their quality of life. We do not duplicate the work of the CQC or the local council (we feed into their commissioning team but our reports and views are independent) but talk with clients, service users - the terminology organisations use differs greatly - and hands-on staff.
I have a co-worker who has some learning disabilities and we work as partners.
We have recently been asked to look at cafes, shops libraries etc in Coventry to assess what reasonable adjustments they have made and should make.
We have also done this work within older people’s providers also.
I would be interested in sharing thoughts and ideas with any like-minded people or organisations.
My Life My Choice, our local self-advocacy group for people with learning disabilities and Oxfordshire Family Support Network, are starting to work on a Quality Checkers project, commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council, looking at how supported living is working for individual people.
It would be good to link up with you and learn from what you have been doing
Hi Rob - I work with OxFSN and MLMC on the Quality Checkers Project. It sounds like it is similar to the project you are doing in Coventry in that we visit supported living facilities across Oxfordshire talking to everyone who uses the services and families to see if the people who use the services live a meaningful and fulfilling life. We then write a report which is sent to the Commissioning team at the County Council with our thoughts and recommendations. We ourselves are family carers so approach it in the way we would if we were looking for a supported living facility for our family relative. I believe the County Council are now looking to extend the project in to other areas across Adult Social Care. You can always contact us at OxFSN if you would like to discuss further.
Hi Rob - so Chris Alexander from MLMC will get in contact and arrange a meeting with you via Ldox - I actually live just outside Witney so can join you too! I am a family carer who does the Quality Checking with an Expert by Experience. It will be good to compare notes! If you don’t hear anything let me know!
