Our 3rd community of practice was our busiest yet! More than 130 people came from right across North Wales including people with learning disabilities and families. Next time we hope more people with learning disabilities will come.
Feedback was great:
- Best conference I’ve been to
- Great having bigger presence of people we support
- Fabulous day. I have got so much out of all the presentations and workshops.
- Great variety of talks, presenters and workshops. Great feel to the day.
- Really good mix of speakers and enjoyable and informative CoP.
- Fantastic informative day
- More time in workshops to discuss
- Brilliant day, great talks. Made me cry – very emotional
- Highly enjoyed the day thank you
- Very informative and inclusive 🙂
- Very well delivered
- Thoroughly enjoyed the day. Very informative and interesting speakers. Having input from people with lived experience was enlightening. Many thanks.
- Brilliant day. Informative and thought provoking. Well presented.
- It was great to see such a brilliant turn out and everyone’s commitment to PBS. The stories told were very empowering. I thought it was a brilliant day and the balance of presentations and workshops worked really well.
- I attended the COP yesterday, which our team thoroughly enjoyed and found uplifting and informative.
Main Room Presentations
** Presentations and recordings are only for personal use and ownership remains with the authors of each presentation **
Active support – Barriers to implementation: Sandy Toogood and Andrew Guy – Gwynedd PBS and active support project lead
Active Support is a person-centred model designed to increase the engagement and participation of people with learning disabilities in everyday life. Active Support is about providing just the right amount of assistance to empower people. It promotes independence, choice, and inclusion. Active support has many benefits including: Improved quality of life, greater independence and greater participation. The workshop discussed some of the barriers to implementation such as:
- Staff resistance due to fear of change or increased workload
- Lack of training and ongoing support
- Organisational culture not aligned with person-centred values
- Resource constraints such as time and funding
Strategies, or top tips, for Implementation:
- Assess individual needs and plan tailored support
- Train staff and allocate resources effectively
- Monitor and evaluate progress regularly
- Embed Active Support into daily routines
Useful Links & Resources
Listening to people with learning disabilities – Co-producing PBS: Shell Williams and Belinda Bradley – North Wales Together, Leanne Turner – Person-centred Planning Coordinator, Eli Pogson – PBS and Active Support Mentor, Gwynedd
In this workshop we talked about co-production, or working together and shared some examples. Kamar shared a film she has made to tell new staff how to support her and we watched a film from the ‘what Matters to Me’ project showing co-production work with people who don’t use words to communicate. We asked the group for examples of good co-production and this led to an animated discussion about how some things we call co-production in North Wales just feel like a ‘tick box exercise’ to the people with learning disabilities who came to the workshop. We looked at resources to help people be more involved in creating their own plans and created a giant ‘Good Day – Bad Day’ as a group.
Learning from missed opportunities – preventing hospital and out of area admissions: Carrie Shield – Community Service Manager, Specialist Behavioural Support Service, BCUHB and Heather Henry, Project Team Manager, Wrexham
You can watch the film that this group watched and discussed here. Please note the film contains distressing content.
Introduction to accessible resource pack for raising awareness of restrictive practices: Dr Ruth Wyn Williams – Lecturer in Learning Disability Nursing, Bangor University and Shell Williams – North Wales Together
Michelle and Ruth introduced the Improvement Cymru ‘Resource Pack for Raising Awareness of Restrictive Practice’ (Welsh: Pecyn Adnoddau ar gyfer Codi Ymwybyddiaeth o Arferion Cyfyngol) that has been designed and tested by people with lived experience and their carers. The Resource Pack provides the opportunity to raise awareness of restrictive practices to people with a lived experience in an engaging way that helps people understand their rights and best practice. During the workshop participants were given an overview of the resource and an opportunity to try-out a part of the interactive learning session that is designed to be accessible to people with a lived experience and deliverable by anyone with a working understanding of restrictive practices.
Communication tools to support choice making: Euan Robertson, Speech and Language Therapist and Rachel Martin, Dal Dwylo
Euan discussed various communication apps available from Assistiveware such as Proloquo and Proloquo2go. More specifically, we looked at using ‘thinking space’ in Proloquo, as a support for choices and decision making.
We also looked at how Talking Mats are an excellent resource for using with people who have very limited communication skills, as well those who are able to communicate well but need to focus on a specific subject.
Main take away from the workshop – it doesn’t matter which communication system you choose or which symbol set is used, the most important thing is to just start using ‘something’ to help people make & communicate autonomous choices and decisions.
Checking the quality of PBS: Georgie Hobson – Senior Behaviour Analyst, Specialist Behavioural Support Service, BCUHB and Jonathan Crabb, North Wales Together
Other useful resources shared on the day
PBS Family Pack – Once for Wales Positive Behaviour Support family resource – NHS Wales Executive
Communication eLearning – free of charge and bilingual
