Meeting MP

Hi readers, it’s Kerry and Emily, talking about many things today, including relationships. More on these another week.

Tomorrow, Monday, we have an online meeting with our friends Amy and Marshall from Speakup and MP Liam Conlan. We met Liam at the Houses of Parliament in February, at an event he hosted to introduce the report 'Independent Advocacy for Independent Lives', amazingly funded by The Henry Smith Charity.

They commissioned Social Finance to study 14 groups like ours over 3 years. Social Finance found that, for every £1 spent on the work we do at groups like People First Dorset (PFD) and Speakup, we create £12 savings to health and social care budgets. That's a lot!

We’ve always known that the work charities like PFD do, makes a big difference to people’s lives, but it’s been very difficult to measure the financial impact. Now this figure shows the value of our work, we think there’s more chance for funding to make sure these groups continue.

Especially now, with a broken benefits system that’s hard to use, impossible to understand, and is negatively impacting on people with a learning disability and others; and which looks like it is going to get worse with the proposed new changes! The government says it wants to stop benefit fraud, but we think it will do the opposite.

We're not happy that the government doesn't listen to us directly. They usually listen to big groups like Mencap. Tomorrow, we’ll tell Liam our concerns and ask for regular talks with the government. We want to create a way, so our voices are heard, with the right support

It's a bit like the TV show The Assembly on ITV (check it out) but with the government. More on that another time. Next week we’ll let you know how our meeting goes.

People First Dorset - a charity led and run by people with learning disabilities with support from staff