Adult Parliament

What is the Cambridgeshire Adult Parliament?

The Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Adult Parliament is all about people with learning disabilities challenging professionals to make services better.

It is made up of 17 MP’s who all have a learning disability. These MPs each represent a day service or social training enterprise. They are elected by the people who attend these services. There are also 5 Peer Champions who also have a learning disability. The Peer Champions have all been MP’s in the past and support the MP’s to do their jobs.

Both MPs and Peer Champions attend county wide meetings to discuss services for people with learning disabilities. They are all highly skilled at speaking up for other people with learning disabilities and challenging professionals when necessary. The meetings we attend range from the Learning Disability Partnership (LDP) Board and its subgroups to county council run meetings on a range of subjects from self directed support to health strategy.

We also hold four big meetings ourselves each year. We call these Parliament Day’s. We look at all sorts of subjects. In the past year we have looked at Health, Employment, Day Services and Other Meaningful Opportunities and Rural Issues.

For more on what we have been discussing please click on the links below.

We decide on our topics by talking to our constituents (the people who use the day services and social enterprises) and finding out what matters to them. Once we have decided on a subject we consult with our constituents about it to find out how it affects people across the county.

We then have an Action Day when all the MPs and Peer Champions get together to plan the Parliament and decide who to invite.

We like to invite decision making guests – people who have the power to make a real difference. This year we have had several councillors, Westminster MPs, the chair of the county council, LDP commissioners, the police etc. We ask these decision makers to make a pledge to do something as a result of attending our Parliament Day.

Find out Who's Who on the Adult Parliament!

Top Tips!

Meetings Top Tips

The MPs and Peer Champions of the Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Parliament have been working hard to try and make the meetings they attend more accessible. As part of this work the group thought of 10 top tips for making meetings more accessible. They also included their thoughts about what made a good meeting and what made a bad meeting. We hope that this resource will be useful for people when organising meetings that people with learning disabilities will attend.

The tips include information about:

The importance of time keeping
Involvement
Effective communication techniques
Accessible language
Ensuring participants are on track
Paperwork

High Support Needs Top Tips

Several years ago the High Support Needs Committee put together a list of Top Tips for working with people with High Support Needs. The Parliament have adapted this work into a list of Top Tips for setting up a High Support Needs Committee to encourage other people and organisations to set up similar committees or groups to help represent people with complex needs.

The tips include information about:

Appropriate support
Effective communication techniques
Meeting planning and coordination
Meeting timings and venues
Time commitment
Measuring effectiveness

Find more of our accessible resources here.

Campaigning

When we come across a big problem that affects lots of our constituents we follow this up with a campaign.

We sum up our aim with the slogan ‘Time for Change

What are we campaigning on now?

Bus passes:

At the moment we are campaigning to extend the concessionary bus pass usage times so that people with disabilities can use their bus pass before 9.30am.

Having trouble with this issue? Get in touch....

Houses of Multiple Occupancy in the Fenland

We have also been talking to Roddons about allowing houses of multiple occupancy (HMO’s) in the Fenlands.

If you have been trying to get a house of multiple occupancy get in touch ....

NHS

We do lots of work with Addenbrookes and Hinchingbrooke. We helped to ensure that both hospitals have learning disability nurses in place and we are working with them on many topics. Recently we have been working with them on developing hospital passports for people with learning disabilities, accessible hospital menus and looking at patient pathways.

Previous campaigns include:

Changing Places Toilets

After months of hard work the Changing Places toilet was opened in Cambridge. It is opposite Shopmobility in the Grand Arcade ground floor car park.

Stay Safe Cards

The Stay Safe card has been developed in partnership between Cambridgeshire County Councils Children’s and Young Peoples Disability Team (as a result of the Aiming High initiative), Cambridgeshire Constabulary, SOVA and The Cambridgeshire Adult and Youth Parliaments, after young people had identified that they didn’t feel safe whilst accessing the community independently.

The card can be used if someone feels that they need help when they are out in the community and are lost, scared or in need of advise. The person would then show the card to a member of the general public or anywhere that there is a stay safe sign up, such as information points, shops or a police station. The details on the card will enable support to be given easily and allow the person to gain help when needed and therefore feel safer. The card also covers any extra information that the person wants to put on the card concerning their health or communication needs.

You can download a card to print out at home here.

and click here to download instructions on what information to write on the card.

Community Access

Finally, Gill Lewis has succeeded in making one of her local community shops add an access ramp, so she can enter the shop safely.

Promote the Vote

An innovative website was created as part of the Promote the Vote project which ran from Jan 08-Dec 09. A team of young people with learning disabilities led workshops telling people with learning disabilities about voting and encouraging them to register to vote. It won a prestigious ‘Doing Access Differently’ award, one of RADAR’s People of the Year Human Rights awards 2009.

The website uses ground-breaking techniques, particularly around the use of video to produce a website that is truly accessible to those with very limited literary skills. Take a look on www.promotethevote.co.uk

For more information on the Cambridgeshire Parliament please contact: