Disability Awareness Event

28 February 2006

Programme

The programme for the Disability Awareness Event held at the Stirling Management Centre . The Disability Awareness Event was an EPASS accredited event.

Presentations and workshops

The presentations and workshops delivered on the day are listed below and those that are highlighted can be viewed by clicking on the links.

Welcome, Introduction, and Video Presentation - Dr John Duncan, Executive Officer, RCGP Scotland

Know your ‘Duty’ - Heather Fiskin and Mairi McMenamin, Fair For All - Disability

What is Access? – Lynn Waddell, Fair For All

Hearing the Doctor – Doug Bradley, Royal National Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Making GP Surgeries More Accessible For Blind and Partially Sighted People – Carol Thomas, Helen Aluko-Olokun, & Jane Horsburgh, Guide Dogs for the Blind

Without Judgement - Access to Services for People with Learning Disabilities – Scott Crawford, Leonard Cheshire Foundation

Speakers

Biographies of the speakers who presented at the event are given below. 

Helen Aluko-Olokun

Peter Barker

Doug Bradley

Scott Crawford

Dr John Duncan

Jane Horsburgh

Mairi McMenamin

Carol Thomas

Lynn Waddell

Helen Aluko-Olokun, Access Officer, Guide Dogs for the Blind:

Helen Aluko-Olokun is Access Officer in the Policy and Development Department of Guide Dogs. Helen has 13 years experience working directly and indirectly in the field of multiple disability - the last 5 years have been specifically related to the visual impairment sector. Helen is a member of the National Register of Access Consultants, the Access Association and the SW Partnership Board for Physical, Sensory, Cognitive HIV and AIDS. 

Professor Sir Peter Barker OBE, Head of Policy and Research, Guide Dogs for the Blind:

Peter Barker qualified as a Mechanical Engineer and worked in industry for many years.  Due to rapidly failing eyesight, he moved into the field of access for disabled people and is currently Head of Public Policy and Campaigns for Guide Dogs.  He is also chairman of the Joint Committee of Mobility for Blind and Partially Sighted People and Professor of Inclusive Environments at the University of Reading.  He has been a guide dog owner since 1995.

Doug Bradley, Campaigns Coordinator, Royal National Institute for the Deaf Scotland:

Doug Bradley joined RNID Scotland as Campaigns Coordinator in September 2005.  Previously he was Public Affairs Manager for a community regeneration organisation.  He also worked in recruitment, HR and banking before realising that he wanted to work in a more fulfilling and rewarding role.  He is passionate about improving the lives of deaf and hard of hearing people and believes that by levelling the playing field for all we can create genuine social inclusion.  Amongst the campaigns that Doug is leading on have been in the “Breaking the Sound Barrier” campaign to encourage people to have their hearing tested. 

Scott Crawford, Leonard Cheshire Foundation Scotland:

Scott Crawford is a Service Manager with Leonard Cheshire, the UK’s leading voluntary organisation for disabled people. He graduated in 1993 from Forth Valley College of Nursing and Midwifery as a Registered First Level Nurse in Learning Disabilities

He is based in Edinburgh and has responsibility for Leonard Cheshire’s Learning Disability Service provision throughout the Edinburgh and the Lothians. These services provide support for people with Learning Disabilities through small group homes, day opportunities and respite.

He has been involved in the reprovisioning programmes of long stay hospitals such as Gogarburn, Ladysbridge, Crichton Royal and Lennox Castle, supporting people to move from a hospital based service to a new home in the local community, this included supporting service users to access and register with local GP practices.

Dr. John Duncan, Executive Officer (Patients, Public & Policy Support):

Dr John Duncan, Executive Officer (Patients, Public & Policy Support) is a full-time principal and trainer at Woodside Medical Group in Aberdeen and a graduate of the University of Aberdeen (1984). He joined the College in 1988 and spent ten years as a partner in Westburn Medical Group, which became the first practice in the UK to gain the College’s Quality Practice Award in 1996.

In 1998 John became involved in the development of the Guy’s and St Thomas Group Practice, one of the first wave of Primary Care At (1997) pilot projects, which was created to support and develop existing general practices in North Southwark, an inner city area of London with high deprivation. He returned to Aberdeen in 2000.

Clinically, John is involved in all aspects of primary care but has a commitment to patients with substance misuse problems. He is a clinical advisor for a Healthy Neighbourhood project in Aberdeen, which aims to focus on health promotion issues for that part of the city and is involved in the training of nurse practitioners. He teaches consultation skills on the nurse-prescribing course at Robert Gordon University.

John has been an adviser/assessor for the Quality Practice Award scheme and is a Joint Hospital Visitor for the Scottish Hospital Recognition Committee for General Practice for Senior House Officer (SHO) posts. He was also a DRCOG examiner for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists between 1996 and 2002; and was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2003.

Jane Horsburgh, Policy Officer, Guide Dogs for the Blind:

Jane Horsburgh, is Guide Dogs Policy Officer for Scotland, and has been with the organisation for the last 20 years, where she has held a variety of technical and management roles. She has been instrumental in the planning and implementation of rehabilitation services to blind and partially sighted people. Jane is a member of the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, and is a Director of Forth Valley Sensory Centre Trust.

Mairi McMenamin, Fair For All – Disability:

Mairi has worked in the NHS all her working life, as a nurse, a Health Promotion Specialist and as a manager.  She specialised in medical and intensive care nursing before moving into the Public Health field where she worked for 10 years managing a health promotion department and delivering a range of health improvement programmes. In the last four years she has been seconded from the NHS to work at a national policy level supporting the implementation of the Patient Focus and Public Involvement work programme of the Scottish Executive Health Department and now specifically with the Fair for All Disability project. Mairi currently manages the Fair for All Disability project on behalf of the Disability Rights Commission and the Scottish Executive Health Department. She has a passionate interest in ensuring that health services are developed on the basis of quality and equity for all who use them.

Carol Thomas, Access and Inclusion Manager, Guide Dogs for the Blind:

Carol Thomas is Access and Inclusion Manager in the Policy and Development Department of Guide Dogs. Carol is a Town Planner and started her career in Local Government before moving to the voluntary sector where she has worked at Disability Wales, RNIB and now Guide Dogs. Carol has worked in the access and disability field for over 20 years and is a member of the National Register of Access Consultants where she served for 4 years on the management committee and as an assessor for new members.

Carol is a member of several committees promoting inclusive design including the Commission on Architecture in the Built Environment (CABE) Inclusive Environment Group; the Disability Rights Commission Built Environment Forum; the European Consumers Forum on Inclusive Design; and a statutory appointment to the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) where she chairs the Education and Training Group.

Lynn Waddell, Fair For All – Disability:

Lynn is a Disability Nurse Specialist seconded from NHS Forth Valley to work with The Fair for All Disability Team as Practice Development Officer.  Lynn is a Registered Nurse, Tutor, Lip Speaker and Deafblind Communicator with a wide variety of qualifications, knowledge and experience on disability issues.

Lynn has worked on a Consultancy capacity to various NHS Departments and Services to ensure that the needs of people with a Disability were met including; Carstairs State Hospital, NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Executive Health Department. 

Several pieces of Lynn’s work have been featured within various nursing and disability journals and books. Most recently being her guidelines for healthcare staff published within Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) and National Childbirth Trust publication ‘Pregnancy and birth – a guide for deaf women’ (2004)

Lynn has also received several awards and honours in relation to her work including; 1995/96 3M Community Nurse of the year for UK, November 2001 ‘Queens Nursing Institute Awards for Partnership Working’ and the Gordon Melrose Travel Scholarship 2005.