About Giving Us a Voice

Giving Us a Voice is a project carried out by ARC, BILD and Mencap.

It has written a national Charter for Inclusion for people with learning disabilities and their families from ethnic minority communities.

An easier to read version of the National Charter has also been produced.

A GUAV Getting Involved Guide for families of people with learning disabilities from ethnic minority communities has also been produced.

The Giving us a Voice team have worked right across the country to involve people with learning disabilities and their carers in regional meetings to tell local policy makers about what they need and expect from services.

There is clear evidence that, at present, services are not reaching these communities. They are often excluded from taking part locallly by lack of contact and language difficulties. They believe that no-one will listen.

Giving us a Voice tackles this problem by challenging people who plan and deliver services to sign up to the ‘Charter for Inclusion’ which the project has produced from 9 regional meetings with people with learning disabilities, their families, service developers and service deliverers. The regional meetings hoped to encourage future participation by local communities in service planning.

Over a thousand people have been involved so far in developing the Giving Us A Voice charter.

 


 

 

 

 

Use of the Charter

"I will use this to inform our own inclusion strategy which we are developing with the people we support. I will make sure that our self-advocacy groups and ambassadors are aware of the charter so that they can tell others too, and check we are achieving the goals."

"We will be looking to adopt the National Charter for Inclusion as part of our own updated single Equality Scheme, which will in turn recognise the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty, which places additional obligations on public authorities and those who provide services through public money."

"We will build the principles of the Charter into project planning and improve our outreach into the community."

"I will ensure that the charter is circulated and enforced by other professionals when working with all members of the community."

"We will provide a copy for our service users, families and staff and plan to refer to the Charter in Induction and Diversity training."