Issue Number 12

April 2019

Self-Advocacy News from across North

Yorkshire

Welcome to the latest newsletter from KeyRing’s Self

Advocacy Support Team in North Yorkshire. This is a
newsletter for people with a learning disability or autism,
parents, carers and anyone who is interested in the work
we do.

Inside you will find news from;

 Hambleton and Richmondshire

 Harrogate and Craven

 Selby and District

 Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale

If you want to know more about anything in this newsletter,

please contact Karen Murray by phone on 07833309693 or
by email karen.murray@keyring.org

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News from KeyRing self-advocacy service

At the end of last year, both Richard Hicklin and Catheryne

Tymon left us. We are really pleased to welcome two new
self-advocacy supporters to our team.

Vicky Millson will be working across Scarborough,

Whitby and Ryedale.

Jodie Sarfraz will be working across Selby and

District.

We also want to welcome Jamie Bannister and

Caroline Ferguson who work with Shanna Carrell at
Health and Adult services. They will both be
working very closely with the KeyRing self-advocacy
team.

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Craven Citizen of the year!

Christopher Porter who is a member of our Craven

self-advocacy group was recently awarded the
Craven Citizen of the year.

He was shortlisted for volunteer of the year and

was disappointed when he didn’t get this award.
The Citizen of the year Award is presented to
someone who has made an outstanding
contribution to Craven during the past year.

The winner of the Citizen of the year is usually

selected from the winner of all the other
categories by the judges. Christopher said “I can’t
tell you how shocked I was when my name was
called out. I am so proud of myself for getting
Citizen of the year.

I love being part of my community and giving

something back. It’s not always easy for me
because I have a disability but I do my best. I
encourage everyone to have a go at doing their
best to make their community a better place to
live.”

Congratulations Christopher!!

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News from Hambleton and Richmondshire
In March we welcomed Lisa Brownbridge to our
Agree Together meeting in Northallerton. Lisa is an
oral health manager and she came to talk to us
about how to look after our teeth.

She reminded us how important it is to brush our

teeth and our gums as often as twice a day. This
will make sure your teeth and gums stay healthy.

In our community safety group, we have been

making leaflets about the different types of
pedestrian crossings. These are the special places
you can use to cross the road.

The Easiworks group in Easingwold are going to

have a trial self-advocacy session by video link.
This will be interesting to see how well this works
and if we can try this out in other areas.

People in our groups wanted to write a letter to

remind health staff about the importance of
hospital passports. These letters will be sent out
to all GP practices across our area soon.

For more information about these groups please contact

Kimberley.sanders@keyring.org or phone Kim on 07717894468

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 News from Harrogate and Craven

Clare Flynn from Opening Minds came to our

Harrogate group in February to tell us about the
work they are doing. Opening Minds delivers
disability awareness training to businesses and
organisations by people with a disability.

We heard about all the great work they are doing

and how some people in our group are involved
in this training. Opening Minds will soon have a
brand new website and we talked about how we
can share our information here.

In our Skipton group we have been talking about

the STOMP campaign. This is about stopping the
over use of medication to manage people’s
behaviours. We said it is important for people to
have medication checks if they have been on
tablets for a long time.

Cara Nimmo came to talk to our Harrogate group to

talk about the Transitions Pathway. This is about
supporting the young person and their family
when they move from Children’s services to adult
services.

Cara told us that Children’s and adult services are

working closer together to make sure the young
person gets the right support at the right time.

For more information about these groups please contact

Karen.murray@keyring.org or phone Karen on 07833309693

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 News from Selby and District

In our Sandpiper House group, we welcomed Jodie

Sarfraz to our group and told her about all the good
work we have been doing.

Last year we worked with the Energy Doctor who

gave us a lot of good advice about how to save
energy. Afterwards we thought about writing some
Top Tips and shared these with KeyRing self-
advocacy groups across North Yorkshire.

Now the Saving Energy Leaflet has been printed and

it has lots of good information in it. We talked about
how we will share this leaflet and thought it would
be good for Jodie to take this to Open Arms.

At our Local Area Group, Steve Burke told us

about the changes to short break units in North
Yorkshire. The changes are about who can use the
short breaks service and the way you book short
breaks.

If you would like to know more about these changes

you can email Steve who is the Registered Manager
of Tawny Lodge in Selby:
steve.burke@northyorks.gov.uk

For more information about these groups please contact

jodie.sarfraz@keyring.org or phone Jodie on 07960875921
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 News from Scarborough/Whitby/Ryedale

Earlier this year, Mark and Rebecca interviewed

Vicky. They asked her lots of questions and
were very happy when she was successful in
being the KeyRing support for Scarborough,
Whitby and Ryedale area.

In March, Tony Quinn came to our meeting in

Scarborough to talk to us about Safe Places. Tony
told us he works for the Safer Communities team
which is based in Scarborough town centre.

They meet every Thursday to work with other

people like the Police, housing and fire service.
He told us he has been visiting places that
signed up to the Safe Places scheme to ask them
what they know about Safe Places.

Some people he asked knew all about Safe Places

and some people had no idea. This is because
people change jobs and this information is not
always passed on.

Last year in our Whitby group we talked about

travel issues in our area. We said that bus drivers
are usually good at making sure we are safe
when they move off. Sometimes though, they
pull away before we have a chance to sit down.

For more information about these groups please contact

Vicky.millson@keyring.org or phone Vicky on 07415259472

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 And in other news....

Care Quality Commission

At our last Partnership Board we had a presentation

from Caroline Bairstow. Caroline is an inspector for
the Care Quality Commission.

Before she came to the Learning Disability

Partnership Board we sent her our Top Tips to make
presentations easier to understand.

When Caroline showed the Care Quality Commission

our Top Tips they had to think again about how
they make their information easier to understand.

After the Partnership Board Caroline told us they were

setting up meetings to look at how to check their
information is easier to read and understand.

Christopher told us he has now been to two CQC

meetings in Leeds with support from KeyRing. He
explained there were other self-advocates who came
to the meeting from different parts of the country.

At the meetings they look at the Care Quality

Commission reports to tell them what words and
pictures are good and what needs changing.

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 Christopher said “I really enjoy this group, there is
still a lot of work to do but we have made a good
start.”

Don’t let me die too young!

Mark, Jane and Christopher went to a meeting in

Leeds which was run by Inclusion North. This
meeting was all about the work being done as part
of the LeDeR review.

This is about making improvements to the lives of

people with a learning disability. The Government is
working with NHS England to find ways to stop
people with a learning disability dying younger than
other people.

Jane and Jodie went to a workshop about annual

health checks and heard that in Leeds they are
going in to GP surgeries to check how well these
are being done.

Then they went to the workshop about womens

health and heard that the number of women with a
learning disability who have cervical smears and
breast screening is very low.

The report LeDeR writes doesn’t include the

numbers of women who have been to screening.
This means they don’t know how many women
have died because they didn’t go to a cancer
screening appointment.

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 Jane said "It was really good and I really enjoyed
what people had to say and it was interesting to
learn about womens health."

To find out more about LeDeR, here is a link to easy read

information; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/leder/easy-read-
information/

Easy read safeguarding Information

In March this year, 12 self-advocates from across

North Yorkshire met in York. Before they went to
this meeting, self-advocates looked at the easy read
leaflets from Inclusion North.

Safeguarding is all about making sure people are

safe from abuse and neglect.

At the easy read meeting, self-advocates worked in

groups to look at the three leaflets. They told
Rebecca from Inclusion North what words they
thought were good and what needed to change.

Sam Suttar told us he thought the meeting was very

interesting. He said it is really important that we get
this information right for people with a learning
disability.

We are looking forward to reading these booklets when

they are printed.

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Constipation training

In our Craven group, Vicky Donnelly from

Bradford NHS Health Trust came to our
meeting. She wanted to know what we
thought about the constipation training she has
been working on with Bradford People First.

Vicky showed us the presentation about

constipation and we talked about how important it
is that we know about this. Everyone is different
but you might be constipated if you don’t have a
poo more than 3 times in one week.

To find out more about constipation here is link on

the internet to a very good video;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQNRoedF1jQ

Repairing Pavements

Last year the Scarborough and Whitby self-

advocacy groups wanted to do something to make
the pavements better for everyone in their
community.

Some pavements were very badly damaged and even

though they had told lots of people about this at the
Council nothing changed.

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 With support from Richard Hicklin, they looked at
the North Yorkshire Highways Department website
on the internet.

They reported the roads where the pavements

were very badly damaged and made it unsafe for
people to walk there.

Soon after they made this report, the pavements

were repaired! The groups wanted everyone to
know how to make an online report when
pavements or roads are badly damaged.

Here is a link to the website page where you can report

unsafe pavements in your community;
https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/pavements-and-kerbs

And finally..

We hope you have enjoyed reading this newsletter.

We also have audio copies for anyone who would
prefer this.

If you would like an audio copy or you want to

tell us what you think about our newsletter
please get in touch, we would love to hear from
you.

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 Dates for your diary 2019

May June July

Hambleton and For more dates 3rd
June For more dates
Richmondshire please contact Community please contact
Kim Sanders safety group Kim Sanders
13th June
Local area group
Craven and 7 May
th 10th June 1st July
Harrogate Craven Craven Craven
Consulting group Consulting Consulting
15th May Group Group
Harrogate 19th June 3rd July
Consulting Group Harrogate Harrogate
Consulting Consulting
Group Group
7th June
Local Area
Group Skipton
Selby and 8 May
th 12th June 10th July
District Sandpiper group Sandpiper group Sandpiper
5th June group
Local area group
Scarborough, 22nd May 19th June 18th July
Whitby and Scarborough Scarborough Scarborough
Ryedale Open Door group Open Door Open Door
group group
12th June
SWR Local area
group

North Yorkshire 24th May 5th July

Live Well, Live Partnership
Longer meeting Board in
Scarborough

Please note, we work with a number of groups across North

Yorkshire so not all dates of our groups are included here
as they are agreed each month.

If you would like us to arrange a group near you or would

like to know more please contact
Karen.murray@keyring.org
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 Just for a laugh!
How does a penguin build a house?
It gloos it together!

How do you make a sausage roll?

Push it!

When do ducks wake up?

At the quack of dawn!

Why didn’t the prawn share anything?

Because it was shellfish!

What happened to the frogs car?

It got toad away!

What do you call a shoe made from a banana?

A slipper!

Why do bees have sticky hair?

Because they use honey combs!

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