Last week, we held a successful online event on promoting self-advocacy within communities in Leeds. Around 30 attendees took part in the coproduction workshops where they gave feedback on The Advonet Group’s existing self-advocacy resources. The workshops also asked attendees what they would like self-advocacy groups and training to look like.
We had three workshops for people from different communities. The first one was for refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and people from BME communities. The second was for adults with learning disabilities. The third was for people with mental health difficulties and people from other communities.
What they said
People in all three workshops had some useful suggestions for how we could improve or add to our self-advocacy resources. They included:
- Having notes about how to use the resources
- Having these resources and instructions in audio and video format
- Using fewer words
- Having these tools in Easy Read format
- Producing translated versions of the self-advocacy resources and factsheets
The groups were also asked to suggest how we provide self-advocacy training and run self-advocacy and peer advocacy groups. Here is a selection of what was suggested:
- Addressing barriers to inclusion e.g. language, physical barriers, access to digital tools
- Giving people support to go to a group meeting
- Training on specific topics like active citizenship
We have put the notes from all three sessions together in a PDF document. The document will also include what we will do because of your feedback. To download it, please click on the button at the bottom of the page.
Self-Advocacy Focus Group
We are setting up a Self-Advocacy Focus Group. This is for anyone who would like to have a say on what our self-advocacy work should do.
The group will meet remotely once every two months. Each meeting will run for an hour and a half. The first meeting will be on Thursday 3rd December from 1pm to 2:30pm. The day and time of following meeting will then be agreed by the group.
Following everyone’s useful feedback, we will make some changes to our existing tools. We will then look at testing them out in future group sessions. The dates for these will be confirmed in due course.
If you are interested in joining the focus group or any consultation groups we are running, please contact us:
- By email at [email protected]
- By calling our office on 0113 244 0606 and asking for Bushra Javed, our Self-Advocacy Manager
