16+, MPs, Changing Places & Mascara 10th December 2017 Dear All Loving the snow… (not always accessible, but still pretty…)
Parents Evening – for specialist 16+ colleges This event is the first to be held to promote our local Further Education (FE) colleges to families of children and young people with Special Education Needs and/or Disability. Please do come along if you can – we want as many families as possible to benefit! The colleges will give you a flavour of how their vocational pathway programmes can help young people move on to successful adult destinations. Tuesday 12th December – 7pm to 8.30pm Langdon Down Centre, Teddington, TW11 9PS For any immediate questions, please contact Prisca on: prisca@sendfamilyvoices.org
SEND Forum with MPs - meeting Follow up Thank you to everyone to attended and contributed to the MP meeting held last Friday 1st December. We are finalising the minutes and the report from the meeting and hope that we will be able to make this available to the MPs and to everyone who attended in the next week or so. It is taking a little time to collate some additional information, to agree some actions coming out of the meeting and also to ensure that we have permission to use information that is contained in the report. Once we have everything finalised we will send it out. We also have a follow up meeting this Friday (15th December) with Zac Goldsmith MP to update him on the meeting and to understand what support he can offer us as we try to improve the situation for families of children and young people with SEND. We hope you will bear with us as we pull everything together - but if you have any specific questions or contributions in the meantime please contact: Penny Penny@sendfamilyvoices.org
or
Alex Alexhardy@ruils.co.uk
The best disabled toilet in Kingston. But which one is it…? Last week 2 of our steering group met with Sir Ed Davey, Kingston MP and with the management of the Bentalls Centre to discuss the provision of fully accessible toilets in Kingston. We investigated and discussed a number of potential sites for Changing Places style toilets in Kingston town centre and believe that we have some possible locations to target. We will keep you posted as more concrete plans form. In the meantime, we have some good news for Christmas shoppers.
We discovered that the Bentalls Centre already has a toilet with a changing bed and a hoist (as well as a toilet and basin). But in true advent calendar fashion - you have to guess which door it is behind. And the answer is…. the door on the left! (we have requested that they improve their signage so that people know it is there).
And here is a picture of Sir Ed with our very own Sam Rospigliosi modelling the best disabled toilet in Kingston. You can just about manage with a motorised wheelchair - although it’s a bit on the small side. The hoist does work - we checked! It’s located on the top floor of the Bentall Centre with all the other disabled toilets and is the one on the left. You will need a radar key to access (you can get one on-line or from the top floor of the Bentalls store). In even better news the Bentall Centre are working on plans for an upgrade of facilities and are looking to upgrade one of the disabled toilets towards the Changing Places standard. The current toilet is much smaller than recommended and they are looking at ways that they can enlarge it and ensure that the appropriate equipment is available. So that’s where we’re doing our Christmas shopping this year!
In case you’re missed the Changing Places campaign for fully accessible toilets - here is a feature from the 10 o’clock news 2 weeks ago . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOCupH2ouNs&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop
And please…. …do sign these petitions asking for fully accessible toilets to be made much more widely available if you haven’t already done so. Thank you! https://www.change.org/p/have-accessible-changing-facilities-at-every-uk-motorwayservice-station https://www.change.org/p/help-my-daughter-get-the-dignity-she-deserves https://www.change.org/p/tesco-supermarkets-department-stores-to-provide-changingplaces-toilets-in-their-stores
Christmas listings on the Local Offer The Local Offer is THE online repository for information, events and queries for all SEND related matters. As Christmas nears, this is the website to check… • For Families – please keep checking the Local Offer pages or ask via the Contact Us page for information. • For Providers – please contact the Local Offer to make sure your events are listed! E: sendlocaloffer@achievingforchildren.org.uk W: www.afcinfo.org.uk/local_offer
Mirror, mirror on the wall: eyebrows, mascara and botox “It is perhaps somewhat surprising that I, an autistic woman (and therefore with differences in how I interact and communicate), have ended up working as an advisory teacher for speech, language and communication needs.” http://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight-opinion/working-autistic-students-languageandcommunication?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=myworldreso urce.071217&utm_content=story1&dm_i=YA3,5C1UV,NX86NI,KLSL As ever, if you have any queries at all, please ask and we'll always do our best to find an answer. With best wishes, Caroline North (for Kingston) and Romany (for Richmond) Phone: 07469 746 145 www.sendfamilyvoices.org