Preparation for the event
We have interviewed 32 people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic groups to find out about their views and experiences of social support.
We analysed what people said during the interviews. Five topics emerged that were important to people. These were:
- My culture and what it means to me
- What makes a good support worker?
- Moving on – my journey to independence
- Important people in my life and my relationships with them
- Things I do now and things I would like to do.
We thought about how we could use these topics and what people had told us to help improve social care provision. We thought it would be helpful to develop some tools and resources that could be used by service providers.
We developed a video for each of topics. The videos are ‘digital stories’ which set a voice to images. The video presents an ‘essential narrative’ based on what people said in their interviews. The videos are a way to tell people what we have found out but may also be useful to help people think about their own lives.
We also developed an activity to accompany the video. The aim was to help stimulate discussion and to help plan services. The activities can be completed by service users, with support from support workers.
We would like to make these widely available at the end of the project. However, we wanted feedback to help us refine them. So, the Partnership Event was a way to get feedback on the videos and activities from the people we hope will use them.
The event
We held our partnership event on Friday 29th November. Fifty-four people came along to the event including people with learning disabilities, support workers and service providers. Everyone was assigned a group, there was one group for each activity.
We started the event by telling people what we had done so far on the project and the plan for the day.
Then, we showed the videos. After each video, we asked everyone to vote on:
- Whether the words and language were clear
- Whether they think about these things too
- Whether it was good to hear about what other people think.
Most people thought the videos were clear, interesting and relevant to them. They thought it was good to hear about other people’s ideas. The atmosphere was really positive.
In the afternoon, each group did their activity. Two members of the project team helped with each activity: a facilitator and a note-taker.
We asked for feedback on the activities. Everyone said they enjoyed their activity and enjoyed the day. We got some really useful feedback on the activities and the videos. We will use this feedback to improve the resources.
Here’s what some people said about the day:
“Yes, I agree with things being said and presented at the start and the project is a good idea.”
“Good project, we should do this more often.”
“The day was very enjoyable and met different people with many interesting views.”
“Good to see to many people involved, enjoying it and being listened to.”
“I enjoyed the project that we did and all the different opinions that people said, it got me thinking.”
“Everyone had time to say how they felt.”
We would like to thank everyone for coming and making it such a lively and interesting day. It is really helpful to our project.