Disability Action Plan
2013-2018
Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI)
Amended April 2015
This document is available in audio format, Braille, Easy Read and as an accessible html. It can be made available on request and where reasonably practicable in further alternative formats, such as large print, DVD or other languages to meet the needs of those for whom English is not their first language.
What is in this report? / PageIntroduction / 3
Who is included in our plan? / 4
How we developed this plan / 4
What we do / 5
How people can be involved in our work / 6
What have we done up to now / 7
What are we going to do / 8
Action Plan / 9 -16
Introduction
The Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland has to follow the law which says that in our work we have to
· promote positive attitudes towards disabled people; and
· encourage participation by disabled people in public life.
The law also says that we have to develop a disability action plan. We have to send this plan to the Equality Commission. The plan needs to say what we will do in our work to make things better for people with disabilities.
As Glenys Johnston and Sharon Beattie – Independent Safeguarding Board Chair and Director of Operations in the Safeguarding Board – we want to make sure we do this in a way that makes a difference to people with a disability. We will put in place what is necessary to do so. This includes people, time and money. Where it is right to do so, we will include actions from this plan in the yearly plans we develop for the organisation as a whole. These are called ‘corporate’ or ‘business’ plans.
We will also put everything in place in the organisation to make sure that we do what we have to under the law. This includes making one person responsible overall for making sure we do what we say we are going to do in our plan.
We will make sure we let our staff know of what is in our plan. We will also train our staff and help them understand what they need to do.
The person in our organisation who is responsible for making sure that we do what we have promised to do is Sharon Beattie.
When you have any questions you can contact Sharon Beattie at:
Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland
12 Hampton Manor Drive,
Belfast
BT7 3EN
Telephone: (028) 90 690418 - for text relay prefix with 18001
Email:
Every year we will write up what we have done. We will also explain when we haven’t done something. We will send this report to the Equality Commission. We will also publish this report on our website: www.safeguardingni.org
After five years we will look at our plan again to see how we have done. We will also see what else we could do.
Whenever we develop or look at our plan we will invite people who have a disability to help us. This report and action plan is also available on our website: www.safeguardingni.org
Who is included in our plan?
Our plan relates to the following key areas:
· Physical disabilities;
· Sensory disabilities;
· Learning disabilities;
· Mental health disabilities; and,
· Other hidden disabilities.
It also covers people who are included in more than one of these areas. We have other equality laws that require us to promote equality of opportunity across a number of diverse categories. In our plans we need to also think about other factors such as caring responsibilities, age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and marital status.
How we developed this plan
We are supported on equality issues by the Business Services Organisation’s (BSO) Equality Unit. The Equality Unit also support 10 other regional organisations who work in Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland. This means that we can learn from one another across 11 partner organisations.
In starting off to develop this plan we looked at what we have done so far to make a difference for people who have a disability. We then read up on what the Equality Commission said would be good to do. This was after they had looked at what other organisations have done.
As our partner organisations recently developed their plans, we checked out what we could learn from those. We thought about what was relevant to us and our work. We also considered what we could do together with our partners. This could allow us to do more than we could do on our own.
All this helped us to think about what else we could do to make a difference.
We thought it was important to involve people who have a disability or have an interest in this in developing our plan. We invited all our staff to let us know what they think.
We then looked at what disability groups had said when our partner organisations invited them to a meeting recently to find out what they thought could be done.
We have a look at the plan every year to see whether we need to make any changes to it. If we need to, we write those changes into the plan. Before we make any big changes we talk to people who have a disability to see what they think.
What we do
The Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland is part of health and social care in Northern Ireland. We were set up in September 2012.
The Government here believes that everyone is responsible for making sure that our children and young people are kept safe. Lots of different organisations are working to protect children – we think they can do an even better job if they work together; so we have set up a Safeguarding Board.
The person in charge of the Safeguarding Board is called a Chairperson – they are independent (they don’t belong to the government or to any of the organisations that make up the Safeguarding Board) and they have the power to make sure that the top people in lots of different agencies work together to keep children safe.
The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is in charge of making sure that the Safeguarding Board works well, and has given guidance on how they should go about their work. This is a summary of that guidance.
How people can be involved in our work
The main ways in which people can be involved in the work of the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland are:
· Contact us directly and provide feedback to us on all areas of our work. We particularly welcome feedback from children and their parents/carers whose voices are easily ignored (including those with sensory and learning disabilities)
· Get involved in our face to face discussions with groups of children and young people on child protection and safeguarding issues to ensure your voice is heard.
· SBNI will be developing an Engagement Strategy and Action Plan which will how people can go about participating in discussions. The information will be made available on the SBNI website. We will also keep people informed through the use of social media including Twitter and Facebook.
· The SBNI have a duty under the Safeguarding Board Act (2011) to promote communication with children and young people – including those with a disability.
· The SBNI will ensure that it embeds the promotion of communication between the Board and children and young people, who may be affected by the work of the SBNI. This is reflected in the corporate and business plans of the SBNI. The SBNI will actively engage children and young people early in the planning process to maximise the effectiveness of SBNI work. We will encourage young people to get involved in our work through the pro-active delivery of the SBNI engagement strategy which outlines specific actions.
What we have done up to now
This is some of what we have done already to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people and encourage the participation of disabled people in public life.
Promoting positive attitudes towards disabled people
We have secured access to a number of resources and promoted these to our staff:
· An eLearning resource on disability.
· A staff resource on disability etiquette.
· A signposting resource for our staff. It provides information on support networks in the community for people with a disability and those who care for a person with a disability.
· A resource for line managers on reasonable adjustments for staff with a disability.
Encourage the participation of disabled people in public life
We have put in place a number of arrangements:
· A process for publishing screening templates as soon as they are completed. A disability organisation had suggested that we do so. We do the same for publishing the quarterly screening reports.
· When we evaluate training that the Equality Unit delivers we include a question on whether trainees with a disability felt that their needs were met. This helps us to find out whether we need to make any further adjustments.
· We include the disability duties in all Screening Training that the Equality Unit delivers.
· In Screening Training we look at how the disability duties can be considered in practice. Whenever staff take decisions they must write down what they have done or plan to do to promote the disability duties in their decision.
· We let our staff, service users and the public know that they can ask for materials in other formats such as in large print or as a CD.
What we are going to do
In the table below we list all the actions that we suggest we will do. We also say when we will do them.
You may find it useful to also look at our draft Equality Action Plan. In it we have included a range of actions to improve our communication and engagement with children and young people including those who have a disability. Many of these are aimed at encouraging their input in our work.
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Action Plan: What we will do to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people and encourage the participation of disabled people in public life
(1) Communication
Action Measure / Intended Outcome / Performance Indicator and Target / Timescale and Ownership1.1. / Work with disabled people to consider the diversity of images used and potential for portraying wider range of individuals when developing information materials including websites
Review best practice guidance
Develop comprehensive guidance and checklist for authors
Undertake audit of information materials including website / Disabled people are portrayed in a positive manner / Checklist for authors
Guidance for authors
Audit of information materials including website undertaken
Annual Review of Progress to ECNI / Business Services Organisation (BSO) Equality Unit
Year 2 onward
1.2. / Monitor and assess accessibility of our website
Undertake assessment exercise against recognised standard
Address issues of inaccessibility / Improved accessibility / Website accessibility of recognised standard.
Monitor and assess accessibility on our website
Assessment exercise outcome report / SBNI
Year 4
1.3. / Undertake a scoping exercise by type of format based on current and best practice in UK
Where appropriate undertake tender exercise and put in place contractual arrangements / Alternative accessible formats are more readily available / Arrangements are in place to support staff in procuring materials in alternative formats Contracts in place where appropriate / BSO Equality Unit
Year 3
1.4. / Adopt Accessible Information policy and guidance. / Improved accessibility of information / Common wording relating to alternative formats for inclusion in documents.
Protocol on how to deal with requests for alternative formats.
For electronic communication, staff are supported to ensure that settings meet needs regarding accessible font size. / Director of Operations
Year 2
1.5. / Involvement of disabled children in the development of safeguarding policy relating to protecting disabled children
· Policies and Procedures Committee to involve disabled children in the development of specific guidance in relation to safeguarding children with a disability under the review of regional child protection procedures. / Guidance takes into account views of children with a disability / Report on engagement activities / Policy & Procedures Committee
Year 2 / 3
1.6. / Issues relating to multi-agency training for professionals working with children with disabilities teams.
Develop guidance for relevant professionals on how to communicate with children with disabilities / Better participation of children with disabilities as a result of professionals having skills to communicate effectively with them / Guidance on how to communicate with children with disabilities / Training & Education Committee
Year 2/3
(2) Awareness Raising and Training
2.1 / Prompt staff to keep up to date their personal equality monitoring records (via self-service on new Human Resources IT system) / More accurate data in place / Prompt issued to staff / Director of Operations
Year 1
2.2 / We will work with our corporate host the Public Health Agency to raise awareness of specific barriers faced by people with disabilities including through linking in with National Awareness Days or Weeks (such as Mind your Health Day) / Increased awareness of staff, board and committee members of the range of disabilities and needs / 2 annual awareness days profiled / BSO Equality Unit
Year 1 onwards
Director of Operations
Year 2
50% of staff participating in the evaluation indicate that they know more about people living with disabilities as a result of the awareness days
2.3 / In collaboration with people with a disability review current guidance and produce revised guidance on support for staff with a disability / Staff with a disability are supported and staff are empowered to provide support / Guidance in place for staff with a disability on what support is available.
Guidance promoted via websites, newsletters, emails / SBNI
Year 2
2.4 / We will work with our corporate host the Public Health Agency in collaboration with disabled people to design, deliver and evaluate training for staff and Board Members on disability equality and disability legislation. / Increased staff and Board Member awareness of the range of disabilities and needs and increased ability to facilitate individuals’ disability needs / 80% of staff and Board Members have successfully completed the disability module of Discovering Diversity
80%staff and Board Members trained within 2 years. / SBNI
Year 2 onwards
2.5 / We will work with our corporate host the Public Health Agency to review a Performance Appraisal template to include prompt on particular needs of appraisee relating to disability. / Needs of staff are identified and met / Revised form in place.
Appraisal training documentation for managers includes the need to provide staff with opportunity to identify needs during performance appraisals / Year 3
(3) Getting people involved in our work, Participation and Engagement