LCiL’s 5 Days of #SDSWeek

Published: March 29, 2015

Call to action Day 5 - Let’s keep tell it like it is – the LCiL Champions programme LCIL members at Access to Work Launch

In April 2013 LCiL started to train its first Champions – a group of nine disabled people, people with long-term conditions and carers who are involved with LCiL and its services in a variety of ways.

The Champions formed at a crucial time – with a year to go before the SDS legislation came into force they played a key role in helping the Lothian local authorities develop their SDS training.

This video shows how they were trained and are supported, and what they did during their first year.   We hope you enjoy it!

(The video has subtitles which can be turned on and off using the ‘captions’ button on the bar at the bottom)

Since the video was made the Champions gone from strength to strength – spreading their influence by training some other people to speak about their lived experience and working even more with local authorities (See Day 3 post)

Call to action Day 4 – ‘Good to know other people are in the same boat’ : Peer support for parent and carers

In January, LCiL successfully hosted a workshop for parents and carers of disabled children and children with additional support needs.  The parents and carers that attended agreed that one of the best things about the workshop was the opportunity to meet with others in a similar situation and share experiences.

Here’s some of what the participants said:

“Very positive, very relevant.”

“Good to know other people are in the same boat.”

“Great to listen to how other parents achieved something, the process they used.”

They decided to continue to meet as a peer support group with LCiL hosting and facilitating each meeting.

The peer support group meets once a month at Norton Park, alternating Mondays and Thursdays.  It is an open group so any parent or carer is welcome even if they have not attended previous meetings.

The peer support group will provide parents and carers with the opportunity to:

  • Meet other parents and carers
  • Explore ideas and opportunities around support
  • Find out practical information, resources and information on who to ask
  • Develop skills and build confidence
  • Hear from guest speakers and organisations on a range of topics

The next Peer Support Group meets on Thursday 23rd April 2015, 10.30am -1.30pm.

The next new workshop for Parents and Carers is on Thursday 16th April 2015, 10.30am -2.00pm.

Click here to view the flyer for the Peer Support Group.

Or click here to book a place in the next free workshop for Parents and Carers.


Call to actionDay 3 -  ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone…If you want to go far, go together’ : How LCiL Champions have been working with local authorities

The LCiL Champions are group of nine disabled people, people with long-term conditions and carers who’ve been trained and supported to share their lived experience – to ‘tell it like it is’.

They’ve played a vital role in helping the Lothian local authorities to develop their SDS training for social workers and other practitioners. This week they have launch a new short film about the work some of them have done with the local authorities:

You can watch it here on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRDJBFVQRigLCiL member sitting

(It has subtitles which can be turned of or off using the ‘captions’ button on the bar at the bottom)

Emma, one of the Champions, was involved from the start in planning and developing training for East Lothian Council (ELC).  She spoke about the social model of disability and what it means for her life and support package to about 90 people, in four training sessions. This went so well that Emma was asked to work with John from ELC to do a workshop to share what they’d done at a national event.

This built our confidence and skills in ‘co-production’ – a fancy word for all the people who really know about something working together on it!  We’ve gone on to work with Midlothian Council (MLC) and VOCAL (the carers’ organisation) to design and facilitate workshops for MLC staff on how to have really good conversations with service users and carers.  Emma says:

It’s been good to be involved all the way through – if you’re going to collaborate it’s vital to do it right from the start.  Successful co-production is hard, but it’s really worth doing – we’ve got a much more rounded training workshop because of it.  What have I learned from this? It’s important to be patient, and even when there are misunderstandings it’s worth sticking with it!

Join us in discussions on social media via our Facebook page and Twitter feed by using the hashtag #SDSWeek and including @LothianCIL!


Call to actionDay 2 – Taking it On: Making self-directed Support accessible for people who use mental health services

Early last year LCiL teamed up withsupport-table Support in Mind and Penumbra to look at how we could make information on self-directed support (SDS) accessible and relevant for people who use mental health services.

We set out to design a workshop specifically targeted at people who use mental health services to learn about SDS and how it fits with their own outcomes and ideas of recovery.

The workshop has two areas of learning:

  • The SDS pathway – what the steps are for accessing SDS, what to expect in regards to the local authority’s duties towards them and where get information, support and advocacy.
  • Identifying Outcomes – what are outcomes and how they relate to support planning? This has been used to enable to thinking about their own outcomes, their current support and what they might like in the future.Quote from participant:  ‘’I think that it (SDS Outcomes Workshop) has a lot to offer and the booklet that you have given us also takes us through it to remind us again if we forget. I feel more confident and perhaps a little bit more motivated to have a go.’

The next workshop is taking place on Wednesday 1st April at The Stafford Centre, which is open to anyone who uses mental health services or experiences mental health problems and would like to learn more about SDS.

Find out more by contacting Emma Wynack on 0131 475 2350 or email: emma.wynack@lothiancil.org.uk

Join us in discussions on social media via our Facebook page and Twitter feed by using the hashtag #SDSWeek and including @LothianCIL!


 Call to actionDay 1 – LCiL’s 5 days of SDS Week

To mark SDS Awareness Week we will be showcasing a number of LCiL intiatives which are working towards a vision of SDS. each day starting on Monday 30th of March 2015Minister with Emma and Robert

Last year, on April 1st 2014, in partnership with the Scottish Government we hosted a national reception, to officially launch the Social Care (self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act.  The event was a platform to engage people right across Scotland with SDS.  During the event one of the activities that people could do was to go to a video booth and be filmed answering the question ‘what do you hope SDS will do for you?’  Watch the short film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgkT3aVoIHk 

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