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High Support Needs Committee

The High Support Needs Committee works with the Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Parliament to ensure the most vulnerable people in our community are given a voice on important issues. 

The committee was set up by a group of adults with high support needs and their parents and carers with support from VoiceAbility (then Speaking Up).  The committee has been running for over 5 years and is still facilitated by VoiceAbility.  It feeds into the work of the Learning Disability Adult Parliament.

The committee currently has four members: Susanna Patterson and Simon Vale have been involved since the committee’s formation in 2006 and were joined by Victoria Stubbins in 2010.  The newest member is Russell Henke who joined in 2011.  All members live either in or just outside the city of Cambridge and are supported at meetings, events and with other committee related activities by external support, be that family or carers.

The committee was instrumental in ensuring that the newly built Grand Arcade shopping centre in Cambridge had a ‘Changing Places’ facility, so that people who need greater provision than a standard accessible toilet provides can spend a day in Cambridge like anyone else, without having to cut short their day. 

The group achieved this by spearheading and participating in a petition-signing campaign outside the Cambridge Guildhall during National Learning Disability Week 2009 and contacting local politicians, including David Howarth (then MP for Cambridge).  Mr Howarth visited the home of a committee member to find out for himself exactly what facilities were needed.

Two of the committee members who were involved in the campaign were subsequently invited to a parliamentary reception at Portcullis House in London and were able to share their experiences of campaigning on this issue at a national level. Additionally, one of those members now sits on Mencap’s ‘Changing Places’ Advisory Group for the whole of London. At a local level, the campaigning work continues, as Cambridge is currently the only location in the county with a ‘Changing Places’ facility.

In addition to their presence within the Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Parliament, the High Support Needs Committee now also attend all meetings of the Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Partnership Board where, as well as providing on-going feedback on behalf of people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, they give presentations on the work they have been doing.  This is part of an ambitious programme of objectives aimed at widening their work and raising the profile of the committee which they identified for themselves using the person-centred planning tool PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope)

Some of the committees objectives set in June 2010 are listed below, together with the progress made so far:

Objective	Progress
To receive an award for its work	The committee won a Cambridge Evening News Community Award on 29 Sept 2010
To meet with Scott Watkin from the Dept of Health	Scott met with the committee on 2 Feb 2011
To campaign for employment for people with complex needs, starting with a Cambs Learning Disability Parliament Day on employment	The committee helped set the Agenda for the Cambridgeshire Learning Disability Parliament Day held 11 March 2011 which focused on work.  We have since been lobbying Social Training Enterprises to provide more training opportunities and paid employment opportunities for people with complex needs and sharing the information we have.
To have met with at least 2 local MPs to develop good relationships	MP Julian Huppert met with the committee on 10 December 2010.  As he had limited knowledge of the issues affecting people with complex needs, he asked the committee to keep him informed.  In return he is happy to act as conduit if the committee has any questions they would like raised at Parliament.  He has raised two questions for us so far and we have received responses.  The committee also met with MP Jim Paice who attended the Parliament Day in March.
To use drama to inform and train people	We have had a one day drama workshop so far in which we explored things that we liked and that made us happy and also things which we would like to do in the future.  We also did some exercises with music, movement and some sensory material which helped us think more about different means of communication.  We filmed the day and will send the film to colleagues and the LDP Board as a training tool.  We also hope to put on some more workshops in the next year.
Make a toolkit to support people with HSN to run their committee	We spent a long session creating our Top Tips which will be circulated to colleagues and published on the internet to encourage other people to set up similar committees effectively.
To have a person in place with High Support Needs to run the committee with support to do it	VoiceAbility have put in several different bids for this.  So far we have been unsuccessful but believe that the work of the committee is so vital and important that, with perseverance, we will be successful.  We will keep trying until we are.
To get paid for what we do	Sadly with increasing government cuts this is still a dream but we will continue to aspire to this.