Hello Everyone - HAPPY NEW YEAR Last Autumn I supported you to have 3 meetings - Forums You talked about lots of things and below is the list of the things that you said or wanted me to ask other people. MOST OF YOU SAID IT WAS GOOD TO GET TOGETHER AND TALK AND IT WOULD BE BETTER WITH MORE PEOPLE AT THE MEETINGS What you said is in Black and what I will do is in Red Replies so far are in Green

1.MONEY What is Mobility Allowance for? How much is it? Can I get it now ? What does getting a job do to my benefits? Will I lose money? I will try and get an easy to read leaflet to send to you all and arrange for someone from the FAB team to talk about Mobility Allowance and Benefits at a meeting next year. I have contacted Hazel Brown. She has asked Amanda Simpson (Communication Officer) to get in touch re accessible information on Mobility Allowance. I will e mail Jill Lamb at Job Centre Plus re Benefits and Work but Hazel says it is different for each person

2. BUSES Timetables are hard to read and understand. People need help to go out and use buses. I will keep in touch with Audrey Ekstrom who works for Disability Equality in County Hall. Louise Rendle from WITS is in contact with bus companies about the timetables. I will tell you any news about timetables getting easier. REMEMBER Get in touch with Louise Rendle if you need help to go somewhere. I have sent a copy of these notes to Audrey. The Network were asked to look at County Halls Disability Equality Plan to help make it easy to read. It would be good to have a group of people paid to work on making information easy to read and understand. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN DOING THIS IN THE FUTURE

3. COLLEGE and SCHOOL You talked about courses that you do and your ideas. l will write to schools and tell them that you think it is important to give people certificates when they have learnt something – For example, how to cross the road safely. I will write to College about the idea of a course for people who are interested in learning to drive. I have sent a letter and your Forum notes to Head Teachers of schools that people with learning difficulties go to. I wrote and talked to Karen O Connell at Trowbridge College. She thought the College would need to see the outcome of people moving onto taking their test and that it would have to be a 30 week course. I suggested it was more about basic road and car awareness in order to make a real (informed) choice about whether it was a good idea to take your driving test. Older people and people who had physical needs might also be interested and could it not be a short course. She is discussing it at College and will be back in touch.

4. CHOICES You wanted support to understand information. You wanted support to make choices – Like visiting relatives and having boyfriends and girlfriends. I will talk to my line manager – Martin Fortune to see if the Network can do anything to help and pass this letter on to Social Workers. I will talk to Heather Ludlow -Wiltshire County Council Head of Partnership about this. I will also talk about people who told me about moving home, all had a small bit of information about Housing, they had not been offered all the Choices – buying your own house, home-share, private tenancies, house swaps, housing association houses. Some were waiting a long time.

5. BULLYING Feeling safe when out in towns and on buses and at home. I will ask the police if they have an easy to read leaflet that gives you useful advice. I will also ask a police officer to come to a meeting so you can share your worries and ask them for advice. I wrote to Glynn from Wiltshire Police, he told me how to invite the right police officer to your meetings. He told me about a website called It gives information on Safety to young people at Senior school. I will print some off. IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN LOOKING AT THIS INFORMATION AND SAYING IF IT IS OK FOR ADULTS WITH A LEARNING DIFFICULTY ? If you feel you have been picked on this is called HATE CRIME please remember to report this to the police.

6. DAY SERVICES Some people are worried about assessments and reviews. I will write to Rhonda Jenkins with your comments and ask her to come to a meeting to talk about Day Centres. I will also write to the Care Managers and Social Workers and tell them that your main worries are: Sometimes you do not know what is happening. Things can take a long time. You want to know how to get in contact again with the person that you saw so that you can find out what is happening. I have written to the Social Workers Managers- Phil Stevenson North & West Wiltshire Mike Latimer for South Wiltshire & Kennet I will talk to Heather Ludlow –Wiltshire County Council Head of Partnership.