1. Rashpal Binning East Midlands Regional Rep National Forum Presentation 12 th & 13 th March 2013.

2. Rashpal - Regional Rep Hello! My name is Rashpal Binning My job role is as East Midlands Regional Rep I share the role of Rep with Clare cCrawford. I am member of the We Think self advocacy group in Leicester City for people with learning disabilities

3. I am also involved in mental health service groups like network for change and centre project. I do voluntary work as a care assistant helping elderly people with health problems

4. What Is Going On In The East Midlands? The last National Forum was in December 2012. Our last Regional Forum was in November 2012. The next East Midlands Regional Forum is on 17 th April 2013. The Regional and Local Reps went to a pre-planning meeting on 6 th February in Nottingham City. At this meeting we planned what will be happening at the next Regional Forum.

5. What Are The Main Issues And Concerns For The East Midlands?

6. Changes To Benefits There are a lot of changes to benefits happening. People are very worried about what will happen, and whether they will lose money. Lorraine Tweedie visited the We Think group in Leicester City. Lorraine talked about the changes to benefits and the new Personal Independence Payment (known as PIP)

7. Everyone at We Think found Lorraine’s talk useful. We have invited Lorraine to talk about PIP and changes to benefits at the next Regional Forum so people from the other areas in the East Midlands can find out more information too.

8. PIP will start to come in from April 2013 for new people who are claiming benefits. For people who already get Disability Living Allowance (DLA) the change to PIP will start from autumn 2013. People will be contacted about the change. Not everybody who gets DLA will get PIP. There will be assessments to see if you are able to claim PIP or not.

9. Changes To Day Services Another important issue is the changes to day services. Day services are closing in some areas but not in others. People are worried and confused about what might be happening to their day service. A lot of people are happy with their day services the way they are. Many people do not want things to change.

10. The people who use the day services are not always involved in making the changes. People are concerned they will not get to see their friends, and be isolated without day service support. Leicester City are trying out a pilot project where 15 people from 2 areas in the city are supported to find and use community services near to where they live, as an alternative to day services.

11. Other News Alison Little will be doing some workshops across the region. This follows on from the Winterbourne View Report that came out last year. Self-advocates agreed that more work needs to be done to make sure the events at Winterbourne View never happen again.

12. Thank you for listening. Are there any questions? This presentation uses images from Photosymbols 3 and Google. Rashpal was supported to write this presentation by Mencap Leicester Advocacy Project.