The consultation
To develop this plan, the Working Together for Change approach (see helensandersonassociates.co.uk) was initially used at a series of public and targeted workshops. We simply asked people what they think works well and what doesn’t work well across a range of key themes:
- Health and wellbeing
- Staying safe
- Getting off to a good start
- Choice and control
- Independence in your home
- Community opportunities
- Involvement
- Advocacy
We explain more about the conversations we had during that process the personally speaking section, but three comments in particular stood out from consultation sessions:
- There should be nothing about us without us
- Get disabled children and adults involved, as they have the best understanding of the situation
- People need to think outside the box
A first draft of the plan went out for public consultation in January 2016. At the same time, direct consultation and engagement also took place with Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Breakthrough UK, Manchester Disabled People’s Access Group, Manchester Deaf Centre, and the Manchester City Council Disabled Staff Group.
All the feedback has been reviewed and used to develop the current version of the plan and draft standards of best practice called 'access all areas'. These should not be confused with Access Standards but can be used to help understand how it’s intended that the plan is used to remove barriers affecting disabled children and adults and their supporters. It is acknowledged that the proposed governance structure will need to develop this further, so standards will be reviewed by the Engagement Group and the Partnership Board as part of the overall development of the plan’s work programme.
Disabled children and adults are continuing to drive this work, with their views, both positive and negative, informing the priorities and actions. They are the catalyst for the change that will happen.
The plan doesn’t detail the work because that will be the responsibility of the Partnership Board and the Engagement Group, which will always be responding and adapting to the views of disabled children and adults, as well as utilising new research or data. The plan won’t be fixed in time, so the detail can be found in the work of those groups that form part of the The Our Manchester Disability Plan governance structure.
Next: Foreword