UK learning disability awareness week

for UK learning disability [US definition=intelectual disability] week this year,am going to be going to an NHS hospital and training the hospital staff on intelectual disability,some are genuinely awesome and dont need training to understand us but the majority need a lot of training in many areas and who better to give them real world experience than those of us with it?

am going to be going along with the trafford ID team and a friend of mine/a fellow service user of the team, funnily enough-well it isnt funny actualy as will be in a lot of pain--am going to be in exactly the same hospital on exactly the same day early on, am having the usual general anaesthetic/day surgery treatment on teeth,getting them sorted out plus three of the little bastards have to be removed [theyre putting in special falsies at another date when gums have recovered-the falsies will be custom made to be epileptic and head banging safe,mum always did tell doctors at a young age they shoud have just whipped them out then-hers were all removed at twenty one,mine were damaged by severe dental fluorosis;caused by a brutal lifelong obsession with eating toothpaste ever since they tried washing ems teeth as a baby/toddler].
so am going to be teaching a load of medical people about ID [and hopefuly autism] on the job as well as dozing along to the conference

am going to be bringing up issues with nurses about how they communicate to us- they need to be talking to us not around us,and if they need to talk to our support staff/family/carers they shoud apologise to us and say we arent being ignored.

they need to have PECS books of adult friendly symbols available in every ward,not just accident and emergency, and even then not all staff know of it.

they need to be trained in makaton;none of them are.

they need to recognise we have a different understanding of pain,and just because we cant explain it well or show it well it doesnt mean we cant be greatly suffering.

they need to understand that severe challenging behavior is not an attempt at making the nurses lives difficult,its a form of communication from very desperate individuals who cannot express it in any other way.


am very looking forward to doing it as have got some MAJOR issues with that hospital.