North Yorkshire Disability Forum

North Yorkshire Disability Forum

York CVS, Priory Street, YO1 6ET

11 March 2016 11am – 3.30pm

Confirmed minutes Present Andrew Newton (Chair) RipPSI and H/C Disability Forum Shanna Carrell (notes) NYCC Health and Adult Services Nick Jewkes Harrogate Disability Forum Brenda Haw Harrogate Disability Forum Nick Moxon Harrogate Disability Forum Maggie Donnelly RipPSI Bill Chatt Yorkshire Coast Disability Forum Bill Busfield Yorkshire Coast Disability Forum Tracey Pickering Yorkshire Coast Disability Forum Pablo Rees Yorkshire Coast Disability Forum Phil Dodson Selby District Disability Forum Judith Riley Selby District Disability Forum Vanessa Langford Selby District Disability Forum John Atkins Hambleton & Richmondshire DF Sally Anderson NYCC Health and Adult Services Kellie Woodley Inclusion North Julie Fletcher BSL interpreter David Wycherley BSL interpreter

Apologies Joe Lennon Selby District Disability Forum Deirdre Edgar Hambleton & Richmondshire DF Nichola Brown Hambleton & Richmondshire DF Roy Emmerson Hambleton & Richmondshire DF Julie Knight NYCIL

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1. Introductions and Welcome

Welcome to Nick Moxon, Judith Riley and Vanessa Langford, all of whom are attending the NYDF for the first time. Welcome also to our guests, Sally Anderson and Kellie Woodley.

2. Apologies: as listed on page 1

Declarations of interest: none.

3. Notes of last meeting, 11 December 2015

The minutes were approved as accurate.

Matters arising from last meeting:

a) Dropped kerbs group: SC to arrange a date for the meeting with Business and Environmental Services. b) SC to circulate contact details for the commissioning team, as suggested by Sue Carty at the meeting in December. c) LGA focus group on 9th March: attended by Maggie, Andrew and Vanessa. Positive feedback given on their experience. Andrew stated that he thought it was very positive that the council is seeking review and feedback on improvement. Members agreed that they would like to hear the outcome of the review.

4. Local Disability Forum reports – highlights

Hambleton and Richmondshire Disability Forum

John reported that the adapted housing checks for Richmondshire District Council would start soon; Data Protection had become an issue but this has now been resolved. Aiming for completion by end April.

John said that he was also helping Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby CCG to put together a focus group on 7-day GP opening. This led to a discussion about access to GP surgeries and concern that the practice of requiring patients to ring the surgery on the morning in order

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to get an appointment was an access barrier for some disabled people, particularly if they had to book transport to get to the surgery. Consideration to be given to inviting health representatives to NYDF or to local forums.

He had made contact with a disabled person living in Northallerton who was an access consultant and who was interested in hosting a disability awareness/access workshop for local businesses.

The forum website had been closed as there was very little traffic; the Facebook page was still live.

Harrogate and Craven Disability Forum

The first meeting of the potential new Craven forum was held in February; it was very well attended and there was lots of enthusiasm. The next meeting is in April and will look at terms of reference.

There is a disability access group in Harrogate supported by Harrogate District council. Nick, Andrew and Shanna went to their meeting in February to talk about working more closely together and this seemed to go well.

At the last meeting of the Harrogate and Craven Forum, the Operations Manager of Connexions bus company came to talk to the group about accessible transport. The discussion was really good and very positive. Karen Murray from Keyring also came to talk about working with the learning disability self-advocates on access issues.

One of our members, Lianne, and her support group the Yorkshire Spinners is working on a balance awareness event in the Autumn.

RipPSI

The group has continued to meet monthly; we have had feedback from our meeting with Highways, and one issue, that of a missing drop kerb on the opposite side of the road to an existing one is being addressed.

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The other matters we had raised were deemed non-essential. However the group felt the meeting with Highways had been very useful.

Discussions are at an advanced stage with the Disability Awareness trainer Martin Austin of CredAbility as we finalise the offer. RipPSI are working in partnership with the City Development Manager who has the retail and business contacts.

There is also the possibility of working with the Museums and the City Development Team on Disability Awareness Day which happens to be on the same day as “Sights and Sounds of Ripon”.

RipPSI also shared some very sad news: Claire Hobbes, a previous Chair of the North Yorkshire Physical and Sensory Impairment Partnership Board, died recently. She was a great champion for disability rights and will be sadly missed.

Selby District Disability Forum

The main focus for SDDF recently has been the development of a strategic enabler post to support the forum to develop its activities and grow membership. The post was successfully recruited to in February 2016.

The initial projects for the enabler will be to draft a constitution, and work with the forum to collate the street mapping presentation.

Yorkshire Coast Disability Forum

The Forum is working on its constitution and had a meeting with Karen Atkinson from Stronger communities in January. The group also continues to give access advice to Scarborough Borough Council, most recently Pablo has been working with the council on disabled facilities grants.

Gill and Steve attended two Autism events at the end of last year; Gill has written detailed report on both events.

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Scarborough & Ryedale Community Cycling attended our last meeting to discuss adapted bicycles. This is a fairly new venture and they are trying to raise their profile with many other local groups. The scheme is aimed at any age group and they currently have around 80 bicycles.

Two representatives from the Guide Dogs also attended to discuss the work of the guide dog service. This service does not receive any government funding. There is an issue with people who don’t put their dogs on leads, as there is a risk of attack on the guide dogs. Street Clutter is a big problem.

The forum is inviting Area 3 Highways to the next meeting. They are asked to feed back to NYDF; NYDF to consider inviting Highways to the county Forum to discuss the issue of street clutter and street maintenance.

SBC is revamping Scarborough Market and the forum are hoping for a Changing Place. This is an issue that Scarborough Local Area Group might also be interested in. Shanna to help the forums to link up.

The forum also shared the news that Pablo Rees, Vice-chair, will be moving away from North Yorkshire. Thank you to Pablo for all his hard work, expertise and strong commitment to disability rights.

5. Living Well Service

Sally Anderson, NYCC Health and Adult Services, joined the forum for this item. Sally is part of the new Living Well team and her role is to support the implementation of the service.

The Living Well service is funded by Public Health (and the Better Care Fund for Scarborough and Ryedale CCG). There are 24 Living Well Coordinators, based in four localities, and 4 managers. Living Well coordinators will spend time with individuals on a one-to-one basis to:  Identify what is important to them, potential networks of support and their priorities.  Work with them to achieve outcomes that are important to them.

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 Help them make simple changes to their lifestyle and their home environment.  Identify barriers and challenges to maintaining or improving their wellbeing and independence, and help to remove those barriers.

The core principles of the service are:  Promote independence and self-help and improve health and well- being.  Help a person to do self-assessments and help them to make referrals where appropriate  Provide practical advice, information and support  Support is free and for a maximum of 12 weeks.  Targeted support, not a default for everyone  Complement existing services, not replicate them

Presentation slides attached.

Members of the forum asked a number of questions. The questions are listed below, with answers added by Sally after the meeting where follow-up was needed.

Q: Can someone receive support from Living Well more than once? A: Yes; this is possible. However, the aim of Living Well is to encourage and support sustainable independence. If a person appears to need repeated episodes of Living Well, consideration will be given as to whether the person needs more long term or different support. Living Well is a form of targeted support and will not work for everyone.

Q: Does the 12 week maximum apply to each separate Living Well episode or is it per person, however many times they are supported? A: Yes, the 12 week maximum is for each episode if they relate to different circumstances or needs. If a person appears to need repeated episodes of Living Well support, consideration will be given as to whether the person needs more long term or different support. Living Well is a form of targeted support and will not work for everyone.

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Q: The triggers for Living Well includes ‘2 or more long term conditions’ – why is this? A: When the Living Well service was being developed we found that some life circumstances acted as triggers that might lead a person to need care and support. This included having ‘two or more long term conditions’.

Q. Would someone with one long term condition be eligible for Living Well? Living Well can support someone with one long- term condition if they meet the criteria for the service in other ways, for example they are socially isolated, have suffered a bereavement or loss of confidence.

Q: If I know someone who might benefit from Living Well – can I make a referral on their behalf? A: The Living Well team is currently accepting referrals from individuals who are referred through the Customer Service Centre. If you contact the Customer Service Centre on behalf of someone else, one of the advisors will ask for more details about the person, including whether they know that you are contacting the council for them.

Where possible, the advisor will call the person directly to gain their direct consent and will also speak to them to make sure it is appropriate for Living Well and doesn’t need to go elsewhere.

Q: How does Living Well identify people who could benefit from service if they are not known to the council already? A: Living Well teams have developed a very good local knowledge in their area and this knowledge will help to identify people who could benefit from the service.

Q: Is it possible to contact the Customer Service Centre by type talk? A: The Customer Service Centre can respond to calls made using the type talk service run by the RNID. Other ways of contacting the council are by post, by phone, by e-mail and by live chat.

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6. Developing our access activity: workshop 2

The Forum welcomed Kellie Woodley from Inclusion North for a follow- up workshop on access audits, building on the workshop held in December. The main outcomes of the workshop were as follows:

We agreed a way of explaining what we offer:

We are a group of people with a wide range of access issues, who all have first-hand experience - the best experience there is.

We are here to help you not only meet your duties under the equality act but make your communities, buildings and services work for disabled people and their families. Solutions don’t always have to cost money.

We can help you grow your reputation as a being a responsible, thoughtful leader in your field. An investment in access is an investment in your organisation.

We thought about the skills and experience we have, and what we need:

It was agreed that all members carrying out the audits need to have a same level understanding - this would include some basic information on the law and standards so all audits were credible and would not say something that wasn’t the case.

It was agreed that we need a skills and experience audit of the group members so we know what we know and what we need. We need to think about what limits our offer – for example to we have groups of people missing who have lived experience of different disabilities.

It was agreed at the March meeting that we need to all have a set of agreed standards and values that the groups will work to. We will then look at skills and experience needed to assess against the standards once we have them.

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We talked about groups we could connect with, to share work and link up:

We discussed a range of groups and organisations that we would want to link up with in the future. It was felt by the group that they wanted to understand their offer themselves before going out to other groups – however it was agreed we should be having some conversations with people/organisations and letting them know more about the forum.

There was a discussion about the street mapping work (Selby) being shared with some other groups and this could be a way in to share some work and link up more generally.

What next from this meeting?  Scarborough will pull together the general audit standards ‘what should be happening’ for the rest of the forums  Selby will pull together the standards specific to leisure centres  Harrogate forum will pull together the standards specific to cinemas  Ripon forum will pull together the standards specific to galleries and museums

Kellie is going to produce a template for the standards and Shanna will send them out to the forums.

7. NYDF terms of reference This item was deferred to the next meeting.

8. Any other business

a) Brenda told the Forum about The Great British Dog Walk. This is a fund-raiser for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, taking place on 7th May, 11am at Fountains Abbey. The entry fee is £12 for adults. b) Healthwatch North Yorkshire update: a consultant, Hannah Crookes, has been appointed pending the recruitment of a new team to conduct a review and provide project management support. Hannah is looking at volunteer recruitment and support, communications, and working with external groups such as the NYDF. It is hoped that the

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new team will be in place in April/May. It was proposed that they be invited to the next NYDF meeting. c) Shanna reminded the members about the Safe Places project and asked for volunteers to help test the system before it goes live. Thank you to those who have already volunteered. d) NYCIL are recruiting an information and support officer for the York, Selby and Tadcaster area – copies of the job advert made available to forum members.

Dates of next meetings (all at York CVS, Priory Street, York) 10 June 2016 (AGM) 23 September 2016 9 December 2016 24 March 2017

Details of North Yorkshire Disability Forum meetings are available at the following link: http://www.nypartnerships.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=16811

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