“Had a really good time, nice family environment.”

“A great idea, a good way to engage”

These are just some of the comments from our Pies, Peas and Personalisation event held on Thursday 12 April.

The event started at 4.30 with refreshments and an opening speech from Brian Button (chair) who welcomed people to the event and talked through some of the activities and work Active Independence has been doing since our AGM last September. There was then a presentation of flowers to Sharon Terry who had very kindly donated the “whose shoes” game.

Participants then spent an hour trying out the various games and activities. These were:

• “whose shoes”  – a professionally produced boardgame used as a tool to explore personalisation from the views of service users, commissioners and professionals.
• “Re-assessment planner” – a colourful poster using pictures and questions to help people think through their care package from how life was before to how it is now
• “The Equality game” – a boardgame designed by Toyah Wordsworth designed to explore issues and create discussion around the barriers to independent living
• “my support network” – this activity was an idea we had from our protective behaviours training. It uses a hand symbol to record the contact numbers of people we use for our support
• “Personalisation jargon quiz” – people were asked to match the heading, e.g. personalisation, to the phrase they felt best described that word. Martin Walker from DMBC got the most right!
• “Decisions, decisions” – Speak up from Rotherham have produced this excellent board game as a way of exploring the issues around the Mental Capacity Act
• Website Demonstration – our web designer demonstrated our website and talked people through registering with the forum

plus lots of pens and crayons pictures and paper for the kids!

Our pie and peas arrived just before six o’clock and as we all sat down to enjoy them Brian drew the raffle prizes and Barbara gave a quick overview of the work we are currently doing around Advocacy and individual employers (with Skills for Care).

Take a look at our Flickr stream for the rest of the photos from the event.

Thanks to everyone for coming and all those who helped organise and clear up. A great evening had by all!