SEA are staging a number of events around the county for Framework service users who want to voice their concerns about the proposed cuts to the Supporting People budget in Nottinghamshire.
The events have been arranged as a result of the latest meeting of the Client Commission, which took place on Friday 29th October 2010. There was a lively discussion at the meeting about how people who use our services can best engage in the current consultation process, if they wish to do. Several service users suggested that it would be useful if there were events across the county where people could get some assistance in getting their opinion across to the County Council.
At the bottom of this post there is a letter produced by SEA about the current situation and what service users can do if they wish to get involved. There is also a copy of a flyer produced by Framework which covers much of the same information.
Please circulate these documents immediately to every member of your team and ensure that they reach every person that currently uses your service. The events are taking place next week so this needs to be done straight away.
It was felt that it would be beneficial for SEA to convene the events as an independent advocacy service, rather than Framework host them. This is to prevent Framework from being open to any accusation that they are manipulating the people who use their services.
With this in mind, we would ask that services do not organise their own events for this purpose at this stage and concentrate their efforts on letting their service users know about the events in their area and supporting them to attend, if they wish to do so.
SEA are planning to use the events to help service users to write letters, leave audio and video messages and create a photographic record of the event, containing the views of the people who attend about their experiences of using Supporting People funded services and the effects of services being cut back or decommissioned.
The events have been organised on a district / borough basis to enable the maximum number of service users from each area to attend. Details of the events are as follows:
| District / Borough | Date | Time | Venue | Address |
| Mansfield & Ashfield | Monday 15th November, 2010 | 2:00pm -5:00pm | Friends Meeting House | Rosemary St., Mansfield, NG19 6AB |
| Worksop | Tuesday 16th November, 2010 | 1:00pm – 3:00pm | Worksop Library | Memorial Avenue Worksop Nottinghamshire S80 2BP |
| Broxtowe, Gedling & Rushcliffe | Thursday 18th November, 2010 | 2:00pm – 4:00pm | International Community Centre (ICC) | 61b Mansfield Rd, Nottingham NG1 3FN |
| Newark & Sherwood | Friday 19th November, 2010 | 11:00am – 3:00pm | Think Children | 10 Albert Street, NEWARK, NG24 4BJ |
| County Wide – This event is for users of the Vulnerable Adults Service (VAS) only | Monday 22nd November, 2010 | 11:00 – 12:30pm | The Heath | Fritchley Court, Mansfield,
NG18 3QE
|
Please ensure that all service users are aware of these events and the importance of participating in the consultation process. Workers are welcome to attend if they are accompanying service users who would not attend otherwise. Workers may also be asked to assist clients in writing letters and leaving messages. Please be aware that if we are assisting clients in these matters we are supporting them in expressing their own opinions and not encouraging them to echo our own.
Framework Cuts flyer for Service Users
good info here, hope the meetings go well and stop the ‘scorched earth’ mentality of these cuts
Thanks Dave, let’s hope lot’s of people have lots to say!