During the month of April, East Kent Mencap was invited to Canterbury Christchurch University to discuss the ways in which our Supporting People Enablement Team (SPET) has worked with the School of Nursing to educate healthcare to students about the needs of patients with a learning disability.
This was part of Whose Voice is it Anyway?, a workshop for senior academic staff at the university, organised to showcase examples of involving the ‘expert voice’ (service user) in all aspects of the Nursing Education Programme.
East Kent Mencap member, Susan, discussed our work with the university alongside Cathy Bernal, a Senior Lecturer in Learning Disability at Canterbury Christchurch. The focus was Learning, Observing, Understanding Disability (LOUD), a project launched by the university in April 2015, with the aim of giving people with a learning disability more say in how education for health and social care practitioners is delivered.
Meetings are held every two months, where attendees are invited to comment on both their experiences of teaching at the university and their experiences of students on placement, in an effort to identify new targets for education in learning disability.
“It was a privilege for me was to be invited, alongside Susan, to present the achievements of LOUD at the Whose Voice is it Anyway? event, and to witness Susan raising so many excellent points about teaching,” commented Cathy. “Unexpectedly, learning disability was suddenly very high profile that day – largely thanks to Susan – and I felt that LOUD was very much living up to its name!”
[Siobhan Rose O’Gorman]
