The government recently announced (June 2009) a consultation on the ‘Right to Control’ - its strategy to make choice and control a reality for disabled people in their everyday lives.

The purpose of this briefing is to update ECDP members and other interested people on:

• What is the ‘Right to Control’?
• What funding streams might be included under the Right to Control?
• What the consultation will cover
• How you can respond to the consultation
• What happens next
• How you can find out more 

You can download the briefing paper here.

Disability rights campaigners have welcomed the UK’s ratification of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, although the government has decided to ‘opt out’ of some important parts of the Convention.

The welcome for the ratification – which came on Monday 8 June 2009 – was somewhat muted as the government has entered ‘reservations’ (or ‘opt outs’) to the UN Convention, meaning that it has not signed up to the full rights set out in the Convention on four specific areas: education, legal capacity, employment in the armed forces and immigration.

The purpose of this article is to update ECDP members and other interested people on what the UN Convention is and what it means for disabled people in Essex and beyond.

You can download the article here.

“I’ve been very successful in my career, but I always felt I had to be better than the non-disabled person next to me. And I also had to manage other people’s preconceptions and discomfort about disability. For a long time I thought I was the only disabled person in the organisation” says Mike Smith, until recently a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
People who experience ill-health, injury and disability can face significant barriers in terms of attitudes, policies and the environment in rising up the career ladder. Whether they are managing a mental health condition, facial disfigurement, hearing or sight loss, many people struggle to achieve their potential. Where they can hide a condition, many will keep it secret, certainly at the recruitment stage.

This affects individuals, employers and British society and the economy – when people can’t reach their full potential, we all suffer.

‘Doing Seniority Differently’ is a research project looking at what helps or hinders people with ill-health, injury or disability at work; what is it in terms of their own personal strategies or what organisations offer that allows talented people to get to the top. This could be development schemes, mentoring, peer support, training, flexible working or other, less tangible, aspects of organisational culture.

The research has been launched by Baroness Campbell of Surbiton DBE and Roger Berry MP, co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Disability Group.

Liz Sayce, Chief Executive of RADAR, said: “This is currently an unresearched issue. Disabled people have talent, ambition and potential, which all too often goes to waste. They lack senior disabled role models who have succeeded in their chosen professions. This project will bring together the experiences of disabled leaders and managers to ensure that others can follow them up the career ladder.”

"In this project we really hope to reach all sorts of people who don't necessarily identify as disabled (even though, technically speaking, they might qualify as such under the Disability Discrimination Act). These people will also have valuable contributions to the research."

 o find our more visit the RADAR website or complete the ‘Doing Seniority Differently’ questionnaire, by 15^th July, to outline your experience.

People with mental health conditions and their carers can now take part in a new programme designed to strengthen their involvement in improving services.

The programme will actively engage people who use mental health services and their carers in all aspects of the commissioning process including service review, redesign, specification, tendering, planning and monitoring of mental health services. The programme will also offer the opportunity to be involved in the training of NHS and Local Authority staff who buy and plan services.

All the Essex NHS organisations, Essex County Council, Thurrock Borough Council and Southend Borough Council have come together to jointly fund a three-year contract to provide the Mental Health Service User and Carer Involvement Programme. The contract has been awarded to a partnership comprising Anglia Ruskin University and ARW Mental Health Training and Consultancy.

The programme will provide:

• The opportunity for service users and carers who would like to take part in training to develop their confidence and skills in becoming involved in the commissioning of mental health services
• Training for service commissioners (the people who “buy” specific services) in working with service users and carers.
• Outreach to both existing and less easily reached individuals, groups and organisations Establishing specialist skills groups to enable service users and carers across Essex to contribute through consultancy, training and research.

The partnership will be developing a new database of service users and carers who wish to be informed about the project and be included in our new database. For more information on how to become actively involved in this exciting and important programme please contact Lyn Kent on 07976 827534 or Maxine Nightingale on 07722 425988, or email.

Essex County Council has commissioned ECDP’s new research and policy function, Insight (working with OPM), to undertake a longitudinal study of people on personal budgets in Essex. The study will provide a unique opportunity to fully understand the experiences of people living with a personal budget over a 3-year period.

Primary research will begin in summer 2009. Using a range of qualitative methods, researchers will track the experiences and expectations of 50 people with physical impairments, learning disabilities and older people in receipt of personal budgets over a three year period.

Research will also be conducted with carers and family members of recipients of personal budgets, as well as a number of service providers across different sectors (including voluntary organisations and the private sector). This will provide evidence of the implications of the new system on service needs and delivery and to anticipate what the emerging market in service provision may look like over the short-, medium- and long-term.

A full briefing on the study, with information on who to contact if you would to know more, is available here: ECDP's longitudinal study on Personal Budget holders.