Midland Mencap’s Family Carers Information Service & Carers Emergency Response Team are pleased to be developing a partnership with the new Rare Disease Centre at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
Last thursday we handed over a collection of baby clothes and baby quilts for the Neo-natal Surgical Ward and Rare Disease Centre. These Baby clothes were kindly donated by Boots Mini Club (Birmingham St Andrews Store)and quilts donated by Project Linus UK.
These were handed over by Georgina Gabriel of Midland Mencap’s Family Carers Information Service to Sister Janet Greenley Turberville of Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Rare Disease Centre.
The new centre is a first in Europe and staff from both teams have been working closely with the team at BCH to develop a connection to support families with information, advice and guidance on a range of issues, provide access to short break opportunities and emergency back-up support is amongst the support on offer.
Everyone is exited to develop this partnership throughout 2017 and beyond.
Find out more about the Birmingham Childrens Hospital here
Or find out more about the Family Carers here
This morning thirty people from Midland Mencap took part in a litter pick on Weoley Castle near to our Community Hub in Bottetourt Road. The litter pick was organised to support Birmingham City Council’s #CleanerBrum initiative which encourages local citizens to help the Council by clearing litter and rubbish in their neighbourhood.
Taking part in the litter pick is just one activity from Midland Mencap’s April campaign which is all about promoting good well-being. We wanted to encourage people to think about and better understand that living in safe, clean environments is a very important part of good well-being. We also wanted people with a learning disability to have an opportunity to participate as active citizens within the communities where they live making a positive difference to community life. Everyone who took part saw this as a great opportunity to do something positive for their community, help improve the environment, work together as a team and feel good about what had been achieved.
So armed with litter grabbers, gloves and bin bags we enthusiastically set off in three teams to clear the immediate vicinity of Bottetourt Road. After just one hour we had filled an incredible thirty five refuse sacks of litter which included tin cans, bottles, fast food packaging and some oddities such as boxing gloves, children’s toys and bicycle tyres. We also cleared household refuse and furniture that had been fly-tipped.
By the end of the litter pick we could really notice the difference that had been made but nearly everyone was shocked by the amount of litter collected from a relatively small area. With that in mind nearly everyone said they would like to make the litter pick a regular event to try to keep on top of the litter problem. When we were clearing away a local neighbour came and thanked us for trying to make a difference which was a lovely way for our thirty volunteers to round off a great community activity.
Mary Hunt uses our Sitting Service. Mary is unable to go out alone, as her anxiety causes her to suffer from panic attacks. When Mary steps outside her door, she likes to be greeted with a friendly face. Mary holds onto the support workers arm for reassurance, when they arrive, but gradually walks around alone, with the support of her walking stick.
Mary is gaining confidence with every visit and is building her confidence to access the community. Mary has been supported to Birmingham Registry Office to obtain a copy of her Birth Certificate, which she lost many years ago. She was supported to complete the relevant forms and is really pleased that she now has her birth certificate to use as ID.
We have also supported Mary to attend her appointments at the Q.E. Hospital. Mary had previously tried to go alone and when she arrived at the hospital she could not face going into the hospital alone, turned around and got straight back into the same taxi. With our support Mary has successfully attended her appointment thus improving her health and well-being.
We halve also supported Mary to travel to Kings Heath to open a bank account so that she can pay her bills easier.
With our support to promote and encourage her confidence and independence Mary know likes to have a chat and a coffee in a café. She also likes to sit in the park and have her lunch and loves to go out looking around the charity shops.
Mary likes using our service, she feels “ It’s good to have someone with me for support and reassurance”, her confidence has increased and she feels more able to access the community on her own.
The consequences of cuts to services often go way beyond the obvious, and have devastating affects on families. The loss of community prevention services in Birmingham will only make things worse in the future. That is why Midland Mencap continue to say #SaveOurSupport
Learn More in this BBC article
We recently attended a disability equality event with Birmingham MP for Yardley Jess Phillips. We joined with Jess in saying to the Government unfair and unjust #NoPIPcuts. At Midland Mencap we remain totally opposed to any cuts in services or welfare benefits that undermine the health, well-being and right to a life for people with a learning disability and all vulnerable citizens affected.
Find out more on the twitter hashtag #NoPIPcuts
Midland Mencap can help with all kinds of housing issues, from finding the right place to live to ensuring you get the right care and support to meet your daily needs. For more info contact 0121 442 2944 or email info@midlandmencap.org.uk
Guardian article on disability housing
Midland Mencap Response to How Budget Cuts Will Affect Services in Birmingham
Last Tuesday BCC confirmed its budget for 2017/18. As you may know Midland Mencap has been extremely active in the #saveoursupport campaign arguing there should be no cuts to vital support services to vulnerable citizens. Though the Council say they listened to the campaign they still voted through £5m of cuts to the Supporting People programme and Third Sector grant funded services. In 2017/18 they need to cut £3.2m from these budgets with the remaining £1.8m the following year.
Last Friday we were informed by the Council as to how these cuts will be applied. As of 30th September 2017 all Third Sector Grant funded services in Birmingham will be decommissioned. The Council have said these are non-statutory services and therefore they are not legally obliged to fund them. This will ‘save’ the Council £2.4m per annum. The remaining cuts in 2017/18 are expected to be a combination of efficiency savings, claw-back of under utilised SP grant, savings from non-commissioned services & some further decommissioning. Starting on Friday 10th March the Council will commence a 60 day consultation which we, and the #saveoursupport campaign, will actively contribute to. We would urge all those affected by the cuts to complete the consultation which will be on the Council’s website on the Be Heard page, the Council need to hear how these cuts will affect individuals and family careers.
We want to reassure everyone who uses a Midland Mencap service that though this is a devastating decision for vulnerable people in Birmingham we have been working on our plans in anticipation of this decision. All of our existing services will continue to run as they are for now as we look at different ways of ensuring people retain access to vital support.
We will keep everyone updated over the coming months about services, where they are, and how you can use them. Keep in touch with our Facebook page and website, midlandmencap.org.uk, for all the details
Thank you
Over the course of the February Half Term the Midland Mencap Children and Young Persons service ran 12 sessions delivered at 3 venues and reaching over 100 young people. Our theme for the week was Discovery with the aim that all the children and young people would try or learn something new.
At our venue in Sutton Coldfield we had an inclusive cycling event which was very well received. All our children and young people at the opportunity to ride a bike that was adapted to their needs. Some of these included wheelchair bikes, tandem tricycles and hand powered bikes. Throughout the course of the week they also went swimming, played hockey, enjoyed the cinema, took part in a drama and movement workshop, cooked on outdoor camping trangias and tried an indoor kayaking simulator.
At The Enterprise Hub in Weoley Castle, we had a visit from the Google Expeditions team where we entered the world of virtual reality. Our young people were transported into space one minute then under the sea the next!
At all of our sessions, the children and young people had the chance to do arts and crafts, science experiments, role play with dress up and discovery of sensory activities such as digging for worms and creating fossils!
All the children and staff had a fantastic discovery week and we’re now looking forward to all our upcoming exciting sessions during evenings, weekends and school holidays. If you would like to know more please contact the Children and Young Persons’ Team on 0121 256 1500.
We’re exceptionally disappointed at Midland Mencap by this article and the absurd suggestion that having a learning disability, often with associated additional sensory or health issues, may be no longer evidence that an individual has a recognised disability with regard to welfare benefit support. We will continue to campaign vigorously to resist this nonsense as it achieves nothing but promote anti-disability sentiment, social isolation and social exclusion. Please join us in challenging the sheer cruelty of austerity and its impacts on our most vulnerable citizens
As Birmingham City Council meet to finalise the budget, which contains £5m of cuts to vital housing support services to the city’s most vulnerable citizens, the #SaveOurSupport campaign will be out in force supporting St. Basil’s in an awareness raising Flash Mob in Birmingham City centre at 12pm on Monday 27th February. Why not join us at the Flash Mob to once again say to Birmingham City Council with one voice NO to cuts to vital support services in Birmingham. All the details are in the press release below.
Flash mob to take to the streets of Birmingham to highlight fears for a homeless future
Midland Mencap will take seat with partner organisations on Monday 27th February at 12pm in support of a flash mob stunt, created by St Basils, to raise awareness for the Save Our Support campaign.
The stunt will see more than 900 Save Our Support protestors gather in Victoria Square with a blanket for a sit down protest, to demonstrate to the council the sights that will become all too familiar should the planned cuts go ahead.
The proposed cuts means the potential loss of 450 bed spaces in Birmingham for people at risk of homelessness and the likelihood that over 2000 vulnerable people will not receive essential help to keep them in a home. The Save Our Support campaigners are hoping that the flash mob will send a clear message to the council of the devastation the cuts will provoke.
Midland Mencap Chief Executive Officer Dave Rogers comments: “We continue to recognise the Council’s financial position and though the proposed reduction in cuts is welcome no-one should be left in any doubt that this will not avert a crisis for vulnerable citizens now faced with losing vital support. We urge the Council to re-think the cuts to Supporting People and utilise reserves to retain all services whilst working with the sector on future solutions”
Birmingham’s Third Sector Save Our Support Coalition, which includes Midland Mencap, Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid, BID, Birmingham Crisis, Birmingham Mind, Birmingham Rathbone, St Basils, YMCA, BVSC and Midland Heart, stated in an open letter to Theresa May on 16th January that it was likely that more vulnerable people would die as a direct result of the proposed budget cuts to housing support and prevention services, with the cuts sure to trigger a surge in the number of people forced to sleep on the streets, piling more pressure on hard-pressed NHS and social care services.
Initial cuts to the Supporting People budget proposed a £10 million reduction in funding. This has since been halved to £5 million, despite Birmingham City Council completely withdrawing cuts to Birmingham Museums Trust and all planned threats to the future of park rangers.
The Save Our Support campaign has gathered increasing amounts of support over the past two months, with over 1,000 people in combined attendance at previous events on 16th January and 14th February, nearly 1,800 signatures on the change.org petition, and involvement from not only a wide range of charities, but also student groups and trade unions.
For those wanting to get involved with the Save Our Support flash mob, supporters will sit together with a blanket at Victoria Square on Monday 27th February at 12pm.
For more information on the event please visit http://www.stbasils.org.uk/news-resources/news/thanks-to-supporters-who-attended-lobby-to-saveoursupport-please-join-us-on-27th-feb-too-for-one-final-push/#sthash.G8ahtt56.dpuf
For further information on Midland Mencap please visit midlandmencap.org.uk and show support for the campaign across social media using the #SaveOurSupport
To sign the petition visit https://www.change.org/p/birmingham-city-council-say-no-to-proposed-cuts-for-vital-funds-for-vulnerable-people