Devon Pilot Blog - First meeting
A good day. A fun day. An exhausting day.
Here’s the Safety Net Team for North Devon:
Joy Dean, Tony Cook, Patrick Gill, Patrick Sellick, Nicky Aver, William White, Bill Allen, Michelle Bishop, Julie Dixon, Amanda Palmer, Angela O’Reilly, Dave Wright, Rob Gallagher, Jim Dean.
We started off with some ‘getting to know you’ exercises. We worked out that Patrick S. had the most interesting hobby as he has just started salsa dance lessons, which he says is easy!
Then we got to work . . .
Group Rules
The first exercise was to come up some rules for the group. This included ‘no fighting’ as we have both Manchester United and Manchester City fans in the group, but we thought we’d probably be OK. To see the rest of the group rules
- Listen to each other.
- Respect confidentiality.
What is ‘Mate Crime’?
In small groups people made posters explaining what mate crime is. To see those posters
What is happening in North Devon
People at the meeting talked about other projects that involve mate crime.
Rob Gallagher
Rob talked about the ‘Keeping Safe’ project in North Devon.
This is a set of packs for people with learning difficulties covering things like rights, the law, talking to the Police, staying safe on line, and making a complaint.
The packs can be downloaded from www.keepingsafe.org.uk.
Rob has also been helping with getting ‘Safe Place’ stickers into shop windows in North Devon.
People with learning difficulties have been given cards to fill in with emergency numbers. They can show the cards to people with ‘Safe Place’ stickers.
- You can find out who your local community officer is in Devon and Cornwall by entering your postcode at: http://www.devon-cornwall.police.uk/Pages/Default.aspx.
Julie Dixon
Julie is worried about the lack of people reporting hate/mate crimes against people with learning difficulties.
The Police did some research which showed that most people with learning difficulties who experience hate crime would tell their carer about it.
The research also showed that most of the time this information would not be passed on to the Police.
Safer North Devon have paid for a leaflet to encourage reporting. This is called ‘There’s nothing wrong in being different’. You can download this from http://www.safernorthdevon.co.uk/prejudice-hate-crime.asp.
The leaflet is available in libraries, Police stations, and GP surgeries. Posters have been out up in pubs.
Julie also talked about the ‘True Vision’ packs from the Home Office on reporting hate crime against people with disabilities. They could be useful for training people with learning difficulties about hate crime.
Amanda Palmer
‘Safer North Devon’ help with networking and joined up working, as they work across the voluntary and community sector, Devon County Council, both local District Councils, Devon Primary Care Trust, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, Youth Offending Team, Courts service, Probation Service and the Police.
What do we need to do?
Because of project funding there are some things we have to do. The group came up with some ideas about what we could do. The group then voted on everything.
Top of the list came training people with learning difficulties about what makes a friend, and local protocols, so everyone knows what they are supposed to do when mate crime happens.
Activity | Most Important | Very Important | Important |
Training for people with learning difficulties (‘Friend or Foe’) | 7 | 2 | 0 |
Training for everyone else (what to do if you know about a mate crime) | 6 | 1 | 1 |
Local protocols (how reporting mate crime is dealt with) | 5 | 2 | 1 |
Training staff in care settings | 3 | 7 | 0 |
Education in schools/colleges | 2 | 5 | 4 |
Regional helpline | 2 | 4 | 3 |
Local publicity campaign | 2 | 3 | 1 |
Specialist court | 1 | 4 | 5 |
Educate and rehabilitate mate crime offenders | 1 | 2 | 5 |
We finished off by looking at some questions asking how the group will work. These will form our ‘Terms of Reference’. I will be bringing a draft to the next meeting.
Lessons learned
One of the most important things is to make everything as accessible as possible. We need accessible agendas, minutes, briefing documents, presentations, group rules, disclosure policy and Terms of Reference. And that’s just for starters!
All ideas gratefully received.
The main idea that stuck out for me from the day was Julie saying that once someone with a learning difficulty has reported a hate crime or mate crime to a carer, then that is often as far as it goes. We clearly have a big job to do to make sure people take mate crime seriously, and to know it will be dealt with in an effective way.