Jottings

17th August 2009

Last Thursday I chaired the latest meeting of the Warrington Disability Forum. It was a great turnout including some new faces representing NHS Warrington and Age Concern, and it was good to welcome back one of Warrington's finest disability ambassadors Barry Eaton from Warrington Borough Council's Passenger Transport Unit. One of the three guest speakers presented the latest transport plan for Warrington. References were made to the number of adapted bus shelters, low level accessible busses, real time information system for visually impaired travellers, accessible taxis, new bus interchange with its award winning facilities and much more. Barry must have felt very proud of his achievements, because he led on all of these improvements, but being the reserved man he is he never mentioned it. So I ensured that everyone knew by acknowledging Barry's input.

Earlier in the day I spent an hour at Chester Job Centre with our colleague Tim Smith from Warrington Borough Council. As guests of JC+ we were meeting with Rachel Perkins, a national leading light in mental health services. She is currently undertaking an independent review on mental health and employment on behalf of the government. As chair of WDP it was very rewarding listening to Tim as he explained what a vital role WDP plays as a major partner in the local employment support network. He suggested that WDP had a greater insight into helping disabled people because we are a disability support organisation first, one that is led by disabled people for disabled people. Whereas many other employment support agencies had a specialist disability section, sometimes bolted on to their main services. I added that our other services complimented our employment team, with direct payment, personalised budgets and independent living, voluntary work opportunities, IT training facilities and equipment show rooms that are often used by employers. I also mentioned additional services including access and facilities audits and disability awareness training. Together we can and do offer the complete solution.

Whilst writing about the later points my mind has drifted to thinking about my friend and colleague Annette Clemo who sadly past away in the early hours of Sunday morning. She joined us in 1992 as a volunteer and soon after took on leading roles as a Trustee and Director, holding the position as Secretary for several years until she took up a paid post which she held until 2008. During this time Annette led on and supported many projects including the INCHES database, Charity and Company registration, development of various Training projects, development and implementation of the Pathways Personal Development Scheme, Access and Relationships, Sex & Disability. Annette's early departure is a timely reminder that we need to focus on today and what we can do, because tomorrow may never come.

I'll leave it here for this time.
Thanks.