We last put news on this page on Thursday May 13, 2010
Listen to an intro to this page from Dino Powell.
(mp3, 73kb)
Football Tournaments
Sean Bridges and Jonathan Illingworth – Day Service Workers from Sherard Road Service - Service users who have been attending the Farm Project at 341 Shooters Hill have been participating in monthly football tournaments for the last few years. These tournaments are held at Long Lane Football Club. The tournament is run by Sharon Brokenshire and it is called The South London Special League (SSSL).
We also receive some individual coaching from trainers to help our service users improve their football skills. The service users are split into leagues, and we are one of several boroughs who attend these tournaments. Some of these boroughs are as far away as North Kent and West London.
Our team is made up of service users from Sherard Road Service and we are occasionally joined by service users from Community Link. All the service users really enjoy the day, and also get to meet lots of people and it is also an enjoyable way of keeping fit! We have won trophies on occasions for winning our group matches and have also won ‘player of the match’ several times.
Service Users & Computers
It is a sign of the times that most people use computers and other information technology.
Cassie Price and other service users from Community Link Service are using their own initiative and using the email system on their computers to communicate with the day service staff, managers and other colleagues within the learning disability service.
Eddie Neish – Day Service Worker, is doing a brilliant job with helping the Community Link service users to use the computers and email systems. The group will soon be producing their own newsletter.
Well done Cassie & friends!
Friends Of Sherard Road
Mrs Avril Martin – Charity Secretary - The ‘Friends’ of Sherard Road Service is a registered charity set up in 1997 by parents who had an interest in providing more opportunities for the service users who accessed Sherard Road. The ‘Friends’ fund raise and have supplied music, cooking and gardening equipment. They have funded outings and paid for Christmas entertainment for service users that has not been able to be funded by the Council. They can also liaise with the Council about concerns, in particular, when the centre was the subject to very bad vandalism a few years ago.
To raise funds, the ‘Friends’ hold Coffee Mornings three times a year and a Quiz Night courtesy of Don and Doreen Simms. There are a small loyal group of supporters, but over the last few years there has been more money given to the centre than has been raised due to the lack of public interest in attending and supporting the functions.
It would really be fantastic to see and meet new faces at the Coffee Mornings – you can meet new people or renew old acquaintances over a cup of tea and lovely cakes made by one of the cooking groups within the day service.
Anyone who would like to offer help or support or even attend one of the Coffee Mornings – would be most welcome.
Training - NHS Doctors and Nurses
Maureen Haley, a service user from Sherard Road Service has been working closely with Liz McGrath – Community Nurse and Elaine Hurault from Speech and Language Therapy. 
Maureen has been helping to train doctors and nurses at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in meeting the needs of people with learning disabilities in health care settings.
Maureen has spoken to the doctors and nurses about her own personal health profile and explained what her personal experiences were like when she has stayed in hospital and used the Outpatients department.
Maureen has enjoyed this experience and has asked to be involved in any further training.
Wear It Pink Day - Cancer Research
Sherard Road service users and staff raised over £115 for cancer research at a Wear It Pink Day on Friday 30th October 2009.
People made a donation to wear pink clothing and they also decorated the building with lots of pink decorations and balloons.
To the service user’s enjoyment - they also had a disco and party. Well done Sherard Road. What a worthy cause!
Outreach Information
Dean Bogle – BME Outreach Development Worker - I would like to inform everyone that the Outreach Service is now based at Sherard Road Service.
Black History Month was celebrated by all three services in October 2009. The Black and Minority Ethnic Users Forum celebrated this with an event of a unique display of vibrant dancers from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The event took place at the YMCA in the Woolwich Dockyard. This was a very successful event.
I would like to thank the service users and staff who took part in the dancing and all the support from the other services.
Event for your attention!
Friday 11th December 2009 – Xmas Party
’Prospects’ Group - Woolwich Dockyard Day Service
Sue McGrath – Day Service Worker from Woolwich Dockyard Day Service - This group runs separately from the main service user group at Woolwich Dockyard. Our activities are in place to promote service user independence. We work in close partnership with our colleagues from Speech and Language Therapy.
We have a small group of ten service users, mostly from Woolwich Dockyard. We have two service users who access Sherard Road as well as our own group. With the smaller group, we are able to give a more individualised attention to each or our service users.
Our group is encouraged to practice living skills such as cooking, laying the table and doing the laundry. We regularly take trips out into the community to promote inclusion. We encourage our service users to participate in the pre-planning of our outings. We use public transport regularly for lunch outings and shopping trips.
Hello from the Pottery Group at Sherard Road
We have four Pottery sessions each week – two on Tuesday and two on Thursday. There are six to nine participants in each session. We meet at 10am and 1pm on each day and discuss what we are going to do in the session.
Each session is offered similar options and possibilities but the groups have very different dynamics and develop the ideas offered in different ways. The Tuesday morning group like to break from clay every so often and undertake other art projects and this will filter into the other groups.
Everyone who does pottery has an understanding of the processes involved, and service users in the group can explain them to newer participants. We all help to prepare items for firing, together we take items to the kiln and after firing help to unpack it. Everyone helps to keep the pottery room clean. The Thursday afternoon group have invented a fun way of cleaning the tables, they throw the sponges at me, and I have to try to catch them, rinse them and throw them back.
Some of our members are not particularly interested in making an end product but really enjoy manipulating the clay into imaginary shapes, banging, cutting, squashing and moulding the clay often talking about what they are making. We don’t always fire these objects but recycle the clay through our pug mill. The majority of members do like to have an end product, some are able to undertake the whole making process but most need some help to ensure that the items stay in one piece. Everyone colours and glazes their own pieces.
Members often have strong ideas about what they would like to make and some come with requests from family and friends for a penguin or a money box. Sometimes as a group we feel that we have made everything we can think of and then a member will have a great idea like one service user’s idea for making a snooker table out of clay. The other groups see what has been made and soon everybody starts making snooker tables.
The pottery groups produce a great body of work. I enjoy taking the groups and the feedback from the participants is that the sessions are fun.
Val Fox
Pottery Tutor
Sherard Road Day Service
October 2009
Farm Project 341 Shooters Hill
On Friday 14th August, we held a BBQ at the Farm Project.
As well as being lucky with the weather, it was a great opportunity to show people what has been achieved, growing a wide range of vegetables, herbs, flowers and even some young trees on what was previously a rough piece of ground covered in brambles. We work in an ecologically friendly way, with some areas left 'wild' to benefit wildlife, insects etc.
The BBQ was well attended. Some home-grown produce was also available for people to take, (or eat on the day!). There will be photos of the day soon on this web site.
In the future, we are hoping to obtain a large porto-cabin to enable us to move out of the present farm house. This will help us to better organise our work and be closer to the area where work is carried out.
Why not pay us a visit, and see for yourselves our 'little oasis', so close to London! We are right next to the Woodlands Farm, Shooters Hill.
Graham Barrett, Community Link Service
Greenwich Adult Placement Scheme
The Greenwich Adult Placement Scheme finds and supports places for people with a learning disability to live with families in the community. It is similar to fostering but for adults. Carers will treat the person living with them as part of their family and provide them with the support that they need to live an active and full life. - People can live with a carer as their main home or visit a carer for respite and holidays.
- The Scheme finds the carers and checks that they have the skills and are safe to support vulnerable people.
- The scheme also checks the carers regularly to make sure that they are doing a good job and that the person living with them is happy and has good support.
- CSCI inspect the scheme regularly to check whether carers are doing a good job and the people who are living with them are happy and safe. At a recent inspection the scheme was awarded a 3 Star (Excellent) quality rating saying 'the people who use this service experience excellent quality outcomes'.
- If you are interested in living, or staying, with an adult placement carer you will need to talk to your care manager who can make a referral for you.
- To find out more about the service please phone 020 8312 3587. You can also download the APS leaflet (pdf, 2Mb)
Ashburnham Grove
- Ashburnham Grove is a registered care home for eleven younger adults with a learning disability, the home is situated in west Greenwich, within the conservation area known as the Ashburnham Triangle. The home is close to the centre of Greenwich, the train station, Greenwich park and the maritime museum.
- The service accommodated seven permanent service users within two flat, and four short-term for respite service users, which is in a separate flat based on the first floor of the building. The home is staffed 24 hours, between the hours of 10pm-7am we have a waking night staff and a sleep-in person.
Recent inspection
In our recent inspection report the improvements from last year were:
- Staff were dating signing documents
- Medicines management had improved with individual profiles for each service user
- Improvements were made to the environment, new flooring thought the building, some areas had been decorated and new furniture purchased.
- Improvements had been made to reviewing the quality of the service
- Contact Name: Angela Gibbons - House Manager or Kay Gordon - Assistant House Manager
- Contact Number: 0208 692 5032
Greenwich Learning Disability Partnership Board
The next meeting is on Friday 11th June 2010
10.45am - 3.00 p.m.
Woolwich YMCA, Woolwich Dockyard.
See and hear documents for the meetings on our Partnership Board web page
Sports day and BBQ photos
See photos of the Woolwich Dockyard Sports day and BBQ
Training at Working with Words
Working with Words is now based at the Clockhouse Centre in Defiance Walk, Woolwich Dockyard. There are free places for people who want to train to use computers and learn life skills like money and telling the time.
You can phone Working with Words on 020 8855 6644 or email us at info@workingwithwords.org if you are interested in coming to Working with Words. You can find out more on their web site at www.workingwithwords.org
Greenwich Adult Strategy
Find out about the new Adult Strategy in Greenwich - go the link to see the easy read strategy:
- Easy read 'Adult strategy for Greenwich' (pdf, 255kb - Easy read text and design by Working with Words)
London Employment Plan
Greenwich Council is involved in the Valuing People Support Team launch of the London Employment Plan.
We have joined together with leading arts organisation, Heart ‘n Soul to present a which also covers the council’s duty of equality. The workshops are aimed at councillors with a responsibility for HR, heads of HR and senior managers of Job Centre Plus.
People attending will explore what the obstacles are to employing people with learning disabilities, how these can be overcome – and why it is important to do this. It was in London on 13 June. The workshops are aimed at councillors, chairs of partnership boards, heads of Human Resources and senior managers.
Accessible Plan for Jobs
You can read the accessible strategy:
- Easy read Plan for Jobs (pdf, 965kb)
The accessible strategy was produced by the Valuing People Support Team in partnership with Working with Words
Voice in Greenwich
We have a page for Voice in Greenwich. Visit the page to find out more about this self advocacy group.
Mental Capacity Act 2005
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 became law in April 2007. It covers England and Wales. It is a law for people who may not be able to make their own decisions because of mental disability. The Act promotes fair treatment for people and protects their rights.
More than two million people in England and Wales may lack the capacity to make decisions by themselves. They may be people with:
- dementia
- learning disabilities
- mental health problems
- people who have suffered stroke and head injuries
Carers and healthcare professionals
All carers and social and healthcare professionals and providers must abide by the principles of the Act.
This link will take you to an easy read document all about the Mental Capacity Act:
http://www.dca.gov.uk/legal-policy/mental-capacity/mibooklets/guide6.htm
To find out more
Please contact the Council's Commissioning and Business Service in the Adults and Older People's Directorate.
