Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

From: Deborah Chinn <[log in to unmask]>

Sender: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:32:25 -0000

ReplyTo: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Winterbourne View

I'd really like to hear more from your CP Commissioning friend. Would you mind finding out if they would mind you passing on their email? You can send it to my personal address [log in to unmask]

Sometimes the feeling that I'm the only one feeling that I'm the only one really not happy with the way our service responses to people with learning disabilities are organised makes me feel I'm going mad

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Craig Newnes

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 11:27 PM

Subject: Re: Winterbourne View

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

From: Deborah Chinn <[log in to unmask]>

Sender: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:20:40 -0000

ReplyTo: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Winterbourne View

Yes I did see your post and appreciated it. I guess at the moment I'm in rather a despairing place after many years of working in learning disability community services. The abuse at Winterbourne was shocking and extreme, but low level abuse and neglect are still endemic in learning disability services in many areas. I did some observations of a chap at a day centre the other day, and couldn't help noticing another man who was deaf and blind lying on a bean bag by a window. I did not learn his name because no one talked to him or approached him in the two hours I was in the centre. All he had to entertain himself was a bristle which had fallen from a hairbrush which he used to prod his cheek.

I really would like to take part in a more critical debate about addressing the poverty of expectation in the lives of learning disabled people. Are we clinical psychologists really the answer? Our assessments are often rooted in medical model thinking and pathologising. I think you are right to remind us that CAMHS services and the psychologists within them are part of the process of creating social exclusion for young people who are labelled as "challenging". We do have some very powerful technologies, but has positive behaviour support as a "movement" had a noticeable effect across the country? The is a increasingly strong rhetoric which demonises direct care staff - nurses are callous and support workers are sadistic - how do we address the powerlessness and insecurity that many direct care staff experience?

I've seen backward steps in securing anything approaching social inclusion for people with learning disabilities. Clinical psychologists, like other public sector staff don't want to lose their jobs, and I think this means that we are unwilling really to consider our roles in systems which contribute to this. Plus we are worn out! Our posts are downgraded, we are shunted around, our teams expand and contract, integrate and disintegrate.

I am pretty sure that a community approach is the way to go to orientate our input to people with learning disabilities. We all still talk about our service users going "into the community" for trips and treats. But of course, they are already there. Lots of people in neighbourhoods are curious, concerned and thoughtful about people with learning disabilities they glimpse getting on and off those branded council buses. There is enormous untapped potential for supporting relationships and alliances between people with learning disabilities and other community members.

Obviously none of this is going to go down well in the BPS or DCP and certainly will not make me popular in those circles, but you did ask for a critical response!

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Penny Priest

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 5:34 PM

Subject: Re: Winterbourne View

I am reviewing something on this subject for CPF and imagine it will be published in due course, but not written from comm/crit psy perspective. Critical response is missing from so many topics. I guess we're all kept busy trying to keep with the program.

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">richard pemberton

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2012 10:02 AM

Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Winterbourne View

I thought people would be interested in this posting by me to the Clin Division membership. Apologies to those who have already seen it. What/where is the critical response to Winterbourne? and the Concordat?

Richard

Yesterday in parliament the government released its response to the report into the Winterbourne View Scandal, seehttp://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2012/december/statement-on-final-report-into-winterbourne-view/ The BPS Press Release can be found at http://www.bps.org.uk/news/winterbourne-view-review-society-signs-joint-concordat

Below is a commentary from Alick Bush and links to helpful copy from yesterdays Guardian newspaper.

Alick and the DCP Faculty for Learning Disabilities have played an important role in shaping the governments response. As Alick says, this work has a much wider relevance beyond Learning Disability. Too many vulnerable children and adults across many care groups are still being placed far away from their own communities. In these austerity driven times we not only need to be strengthening our work at an individual level but also stepping up politically to constructively challenge commissioners, support whistle blowing and effective safeguarding procedures and help eradicate the still widespread misuse of physical and chemical restraints. We should be taking a leading role in supporting risk assessment and management structures on the ground. Commissioners regulators and politicians need our help to use scarce resources more wisely and thereby reduce the frequency of this all too familiar pattern of local failure, institutionalised care, abuse and scandalous neglect .

The DCP is currently reviewing its structures to look at how in these challenging times we can increase support for members and our professional clout. The Faculty for Learning Disabilities work around Winterbourne and their leading role in England in the establishment of the Learning Disability Professional Senate models some of the way forward.

Richard Pemberton
DCP Chair
[log in to unmask]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/10/winterbourne-view-scandal-care-guidelines

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/10/winterbourne-view-fitness-tests-hospital-owners?INTCMP=SRCH

On Monday 10 December the Department of Health published its review into the scandalous abuse at Winterbourne View. The abuse only came to light when the undercover investigation was broadcast by Panorama in May 2011- complaints about situation had been unheeded by the hospital managers and CQC. The report highlights the inappropriate and excessive use of physical interventions, reliance on psychotropic medication instead of Positive Behavioural Support, lack of staff training and support, and the poor governance arrangements at the hospital.

Although this abuse took place in a hospital for adults who have learning disabilities and the resultant action plan is targeted at these services, the lessons from Winterbourne View should be heeded by all psychologists who support vulnerable service users and especially those who work with older adults and young people whose behaviour is very challenging. Many of the victims at Winterbourne View started their ‘careers’ in segregated challenging behaviour services as teenagers in residential special schools as a consequence of the failure of the local Learning Disability CAMHS services to support them close to home.

The DH recommendations and action plan are underpinned by a concordat that has been signed by all the statutory, voluntary and independent sector organisations that have a role in supporting adults who have a learning disability. The DCP and Faculty for Learning Disabilities have had a significant role in the development of the action plan and the concordat and will continue to be closely involved in the leadership of its implementation and monitoring. The review and concordat are available fromhttp://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/12/final-winterbourne/

Under the Minister for Care and Support, Norman Lamb, the DH has given the Learning Disability Programme Board the task of overseeing the implementation of the actions. Until recently the LDPB did not have any representation from clinicians. However, Dr Alick Bush, Policy Lead for the DCP Faculty for Learning Disabilities has been nominated from across all the professional bodies (BPS LD Faculty, RCPsych LD Faculty, RCS&LT, RCN, COT, COSW, RCGP, CSP) to represent them. The Learning Disability Professional Senate has been established to provide a collective voice for the professional bodies, and to work with parent carer and self-advocacy organisations to ensure that the agreed actions happen and we are not faced with another similar scandal in a few years’ time.

Members of the DCP who work with adults who have learning disabilities will have an important part to play in making the action plan a reality. Psychologists need to be involved in ensuring that services assess all people with learning disabilities or autism who have mental health conditions or show behaviour that challenges services who are in NHS-funded care. There is a tight timetable to complete these assessments by June 2013 and to have put these plans into action by June 2014, so that they receive appropriate support in community settings. This will require the development of locally agreed joint plans for high quality care and support that accords with the model of care described by the Mansell Report and Challenging Behaviour: A Unified Approach.

We have made a commitment to provide the leadership to promote training in, and appropriate implementation of, Positive Behavioural Support across the full range of care settings.