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NDT
Albion Wharf
Albion Street
Manchester M1 5LN
Tel: 0161-228-7055
Fax: 0161-228-7059
Registered in England No. 27566R
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[Initiatives]
[What you get for your money]
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Keeping People Safe
What is it all about?
Keeping People Safe is a theme that hinges on partnership. It involves a range of activities that seek to enable children and adults with learning disabilities to be fully included in their communities and safe from harm. The programme of work will:
- promote actions and interventions to limit the likelihood of repeated abuse and harmful experiences.
- assist organisations and individuals to achieve the right balance between having the ability to take risks as part of an inclusive lifestyle and to be confident about personal safety.
- seek to develop effective, integrated approaches among local support agencies to the question of safety for vulnerable people.
- share learning about the particular vulnerability of children and adults with learning disabilities to abuse, exploitation, harm and neglect, both in their families and care settings, and seek to develop effective responses.
- develop appropriate and co-ordinated responses to the support, training and management of staff working with individuals who are vulnerable.
- ensure that people with learning disabilities have access to the systems that support other citizens such as the law, health and education.
Why is it needed?
Keeping People Safe ...... an unknown number of people with learning disabilities have experienced unthinkable horrors - including exposure to the scarring experiences of frequent and erratic 'punishment', gross neglect, systematic sexual abuse, long term bullying and victimisation, and just as painful - the denial of such experiences within the context of minimisation. Many people with learning and complex disabilities do not speak and as a result are further disadvantaged by having no 'voice' that is heard or understood.
Through its extensive experience of major enquiries and related consultancies, the NDT is especially well placed to disseminate lessons and examples of effective practice in this particularly perplexing and sensitive area. The NDT has recently produced major publications that bear testimony to the dismal prevalence of abuse visited upon children and adults with a learning disability and the anxiety for those who commission, purchase or provide support services to get it right.
The subject of safety has to go beyond individual suffering, not least because people with learning disabilities may find themselves beyond the reach of the protections, remedies and supports available to most of us, for example:
- as children 'looked after' without the benefit of good childcare practice;
- as victims of crime unable to access justice, representation and compensation;
- as 'credible' witnesses;
- as people attempting to overcome trauma's painful effects in inattentive service settings;
- children and adults whose behaviour challenges;
- as victims of post traumatic stress disorder;
- as people with additional mental health problems;
- as socially excluded people for whom no-one takes any responsibility.
How to create change
Keeping People Safe is interested to work with other organisations as Development Partners to support them to:
- evaluate current practice for effective outcomes including Vulnerable Adult Policies, Best of Health and 'Quality Protects ' initiatives.
- develop local strategies to improve, that ensure effective and co-ordinated attention to people's health and safety between and across agencies.
- develop training and learning opportunities for staff and managers particularly in areas such as managing risks, and develop creative responses to vulnerable people who have very complex medical needs, mental health problems and behaviour that puts them at risk of exclusion.
The benefits of the 'package' as a whole are detailed in the brochure, but this programme offers your organisation the chance to focus on local issues, to improve local supports, whilst learning from national experience and gaining a national profile for your work.
Last updated :
2 August 2001
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