The Brighton and Hove User Forum for people with a Learning
Difficulty.
We provide a variety of advocacy, support and information services for
adults with learning difficulties along with co-ordinating their views,
desires, requirements and complaints. We also run training programmes
for both service users and providers as well as providing a direct payments
brokerage service. The direction of this work is both proactive and reactive
to user requirements and national and local policy changes.
We were contracted by the Learning Disability partnership Board in 2005 to establish and provide a direct payments service for learning disabled people. By the end of March 2006 we had obtained a direct payment for 16 people. For 2006-7 we have obtained an increased contract with the requirement to develop the service to support people in obtaining an individual budget to assist them in leading a more independent life.
This part of the project provides one to one advocacy and support for people who have a particular issue that requires resolving. Due to the large number of child protection cases we have been dealing with we have obtained funding from the Learning Disability Development Fund to employ a facilitator for a parents support group for the period 2006/7.
This was established in partnership with the local Community Support Team who provided a member of staff to work in our shop front under our direction for 5 hrs a week. We are now looking at establishing a second venue elsewhere in the City to widen the scope of the service.
This is a social club run and organised by people with a learning difficulty. They have their own constitution and management committee and only learning disabled people can make decisions about what to do. For the period 2006-7 we are working to establish a social enterprise community market to enable the club to become self supporting.