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One Voice Annual Report 2014-15

14th July, 2015

Annual Report – core funding

A look at the work One Voice was able to do during the financial year because of the core funding paid by Wolverhampton City

Council


ForewordThis is the final annual report covering the work One Voice has done as a result of money granted to us by the City Council’s Community Initiatives funding.

Over many years we have had funding for service agreements and contracts with the City Council. This has helped us to establish One Voice as the voice of disabled people in the city, and as an organisation providing services run by and for disabled people. During the time we have had core funding from the Council, we have been able to help thousands of disabled people and their families, with representation, information, advice and advocacy.We have also enabled over a thousand disabled people and their families to have a say about things affecting their lives. We have trained over 600 disabled people on subjects relevant to their lives, to enable them to be better aware of their rights and responsibilities, covering subjects like environmental Access, the Care Act, Debt/money management, running campaigns, making complaints, applying for jobs, benefits changes, Disability Equality, using a Minicom, reasonable adjustments, inclusiveness, Equality Act, and many other issues. We also trained over 400 service sector staff on removing disabling barriers from their services.We have consulted or facilitated the consultation of over a thousand disabled citizens.We have distributed over 2,000 Directories, over 12,000 Newsletters, and thousands of leaflets in that time. We have established a large and useful website with news, views, up-to-date information and self-help that has been widely praised from people in Wolverhampton and across the world. It is a website that is more visited and used that websites from much larger organisations.

We would have been unable to do any of this without the financial support and encouragement we received from Wolverhampton City Council. It is my opinion that we owe the Council a huge vote of thanks for allowing us to become an established and leading organisation run by and for disabled people, this opinion was endorsed by disabled citizens at the One Voice AGM in July, 2015At a time when the Council needs to cut services and costs as much as possible, One Voice’s funding was one of those cuts. We are able to continue as an organisation, due to other contracts for service we have with the Local Authority. We continue to make bids for contracts to do work for the Council, and we have been very successful in this: we have a contract to provide the Wolverhampton Health Advocacy Complaints Service, and the General Advocacy Service, - which is now called the Wolverhampton Advocacy Service - and provides free advocacy for people with impairments/disabled people, older people, people with substance misuse issues, and family carers. We also have secured funding for one-off projects from Awards for All and the Arts Council.

Some of the things One Voice did with the Core funding contract can now be done through the new contracts, but things like Access work are being paid for from One Voice’s reserves, and may be discontinued when this is no longer possible. We will continue to look for other sources of funding, but there is a limit to how much longer we can do this work if we have no money to do it.

One Voice has had to change as an organisation over the last few years – we have become more professional in how we are run, & become a not-for-profit company etc – lots of things that help us bid for contracts to sustain us and assist disabled people. We have also taken on contracts that provide services for people from other groups – not just disabled people. This is a reality of modern life for organisations like ours in the voluntary and community sector. We still retain our core values of being an organisation run by and for disabled people, we just provide services for other people as well as disabled people.

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We hope to continue as an organisation providing services for disabled people and others, and giving people the opportunity to have a voice in decisions that affect their lives.Karen RyderCo-ordinator, One Voice

Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………p3Part 1 - Quantitative monitoringPerformance summary (table) ……………………… p5Information and advice ………………………………… p6Publications …………………………………………… p8Website ………………………………………………… p9Consultancy and Partnership working……………… p10Research ………………………………………………… p10Training ………………………………………………… p11Client Representation & Support …………………… p11Meetings ……………………………………………… p12Promoting One Voice ………………………………… p12Part 2 – Equality Information – User Data p13Part 3 – One Voice work City strategic Targets p18Part 4 - Qualitative monitoring p19Compliments and complaints ………… p24

You can get a copy of this report in large print or on audio cd by contacting the One Voice office. You can download a copy as a document file from the One Voice website:

www.1voice.org.uk/downloads.htm

If you need a copy in Braille, or in a different written language, contact the One Voice office.

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http://www.1voice.org.uk/downloads.htm


Introduction

This report tells you about some of the work One Voice did in 2014/15 and how One Voice performed in relation to the targets we agreed with the Council in our mainline funding contract with them.

Almost all of the work outlined in this report is funded via our contract with the Community Initiatives Team, which provides our core funding, and this is the final year of that funding.

But we have won or continued contracts or funding for other projects provided by One Voice:

We had another year contract extension to the Health Advocacy Project, which is funded by Adult Services.

We are receiving funding from Awards for All to run our Digital Life project, helping disabled people and others to get used to using the internet, so they are not left behind when services and access points go online.

We have won a 3 year contract to provide advocacy services for disabled people, older people, people with substance misuse issues, and family carers, across Wolverhampton.

We have funding from the Arts Council to put on a disability arts event

The table on the next page gives you an at-a-glance overview of how we performed against the targets we agreed with the Council for our core funding.

You can find more detailed information on how we met the targets in the main body of this report. Part 1 tells you how much of everything we did (this is called quantitative monitoring, because it is about quantity).

Part 2 on page 13 covers the user equality data taken from our completed user monitoring forms. All organisations ask for this kind of information now. We use the information to check whether there are any gaps in our service, or if some groups are coming to us less than others, we try to go out to them at places they go to, to make sure we are serving all communities across Wolverhampton.

Part 3 looks out how the work we do help s the city council meet its targets

Part 4 on page 19 looks at how well or how badly we did according to our service users, and how we responded to praise or criticism – this is called qualitative monitoring. It offers us the opportunity to improve and develop our services based on comments from our users.We have included details on complaints and compliments received, and the evaluation forms from our training sessions.The final part of the report is the appendices; they provide evidence of the work discussed in the main part of the report – including samples of our work, some of which are attached as separate documents.

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Part 1:The work we have done this year

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Performance Table

Category Target (Annual)

1st

Quarter Apr-Jun

2nd

Quarter Jul-Sept

3rd

Quarter Oct-Dec

4th

Quarter Jan-Mar

TotalsIncrease /Decreasere 2013/14

Information and Advice 190 63 54 62 46 225

Newsletters publishedDistributed to

6190 bimonthly

193 233 198 71(electronic only)

6695

-

Other Publications Publication Distribution

Print:Download:

New: 5600

3

300624

1

479613

2

110460

5

259568

11

11482265

Training: Packages Training SessionsWorkshops

420 ppl20 ppl

1123

22327

21915

24415

79860

Consultation/Partnership 20 20 -

Research 3 9

Publicising One Voice and website

12 1 3 3 5 12

Updating Website 24 129

Website Hits 300 4,685 6,432 6,097 7,188 24,402

Meeting : General 1 1-

Access Meetings 4 8-

Disabled people involved in consultations with support from One Voice

20ppl 8 19 8 5 40 ppl

Other Meetings 4 19 ppl

119ppl

112 ppl

14ppl

444ppl

Advocacy/Representation 20 41

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Information & adviceThe requests we have for information or advice and guidance are many and varied. Most requests come via telephone or when people meet us at events, some are by email, and we even have a couple a year by post – we try to ensure that people can access our services and expertise in a variety of ways to suit their needs, as limiting the ways a person can communicate with you is one of the most common disabling barriers people with impairments face.

As usual, we had a lot of people who wanted benefit, money, debt and legal advice and information in relation to their lives as disabled people carers. We also had a number of people coming to us for the first time to find out where they could get a food parcel, as their disability benefits had been removed or reduced. We worked with the excellent food bank resource in Wolverhampton called “the Well”, and we are now a referral agency for their services.We also had a lot of requests for information about where they get help with buying a bed or a child’s school shoes, now that the community loans system has gone.Towards the end of 2014, people began calling to ask us about the Care Act, so we put together a leaflet on this. We also had quite a few people contacting us about the bedroom tax, after reading some of our articles on the website.

In terms of general categories, the requests for information and advice covered these areas:

SubjectEmployment rights Benefits money/debt foodbankaids & adaptations travel &transporthousing access health/wellbeing/fitness council servicescity centre legal rights care/independent living death/dyingcampaigning foodbank leisure care One Voice Community grants Hatecrime/bullying

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Here are some of the examples of the things people spoke to us about:

Do I have to pay off my brothers debts he had when he died?How do I appeal against a care assessment?The DWP have stopped my money and I’ve got no foodWhat is this about not having to pay bedroom tax if you lived there a long timeI’ve been sanctioned what can I do?[employer] is making redundancies, what are my rights?What is a reasonable adjustmentHow do i get medical pointsIs there an organisation like you in Stafford?What are they doing about the city centre?What benefits am I entitled to?Can the bailiffs take my stuff?[employer] is trying to sack me for being off sick, can they do that?Do i have disabled rights under my zero hours contract?What help can i get to make my house adapted?How do i appeal a tenancy exchange decision?I cant get around on bin day because the pavements are blockedMy kids are being bullied because I’m disabledHow do i get a mortgage holiday?What are my maternity employment rightsI applied for a Blue Badge 3 months ago and I have heard nothingHow do i get healthy citizen free leisure accessHow do i prepare for an industrial injuries claimI can’t get past the sandwich boards in Chapel Ash, can you helpI applied for renewal of my blue badge but heard nothing and its out of date next weekWhat jobs are there in the areaWhat is the law on damaged mobility goods

As you can gauge from the nature of some of the questions, some of the information and advice can take just a few minutes, some may take a few hours of research and call backs or repeated emails. Some is followed up with posting a leaflet, or emailing a link to areas on our website.All of our responses are individually tailored to each user.

We exceeded our target for information and advice in 2014/15, and covered new subject areas, thereby increasing staff knowledge, and adding more information to our website

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PublicationsNew PublicationsWe researched and produced the following new publications:

Other Publications:Images of disability

ESA self-help pack

Supported living providers

Managing Money

Newsletters (6)ESA & Working Disability Statistics Benefits overpayments

Getting into Work Dyslexia Awareness Care Act Leaflet Service Leaflet

This exceeded our target

Publications Distributed:In the first two quarters we distributed leaflets and publications at several events, including the City Show. We also had our free “how to write a will” guide downloaded 270 times in the first 6 months of the year – we believe this was because at the time, it was the only free guide online available in the UK.In total, 1148 of our print publications were distributed. Plus newsletters 695 newsletters.Although our newsletters are very popular with disabled people, we have reluctantly made the decision to go to email versions only, except where a disabled person specifically requests a print version. We have done this because we can no longer reasonably afford the print and distribution costs.2265 downloads of various of our leaflets, booklets and guides were downloaded from our website: www.1voice.org.uk

We greatly exceeded our targets for publication creation and distribution of publications.

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http://www.1voice.org.uk/


WebsiteWe updated the website 128 times, massively exceeding our target. We ensure a high degree of quality and variety for the articles on our website.Website updates were sometimes about events being put on for disabled people or by disabled people, as well as news and information, and new additions to our online Directory.

Here are some of the searches people did in Google and other sites, which led them to our website: swimming bilston, (and bilston, gym)leisure, equality and diversity,dwp loans and grants, child benefit rates, SDA rates, walk-in centre, sheltered housing, wolverhampton mental health, homelessness organisation, asra, leisure benefits, learn wolverhampton, chemist rota, enhanced disability premium, homeless;photographs of disabled people, guide dogs around the uk;pip descriptors; why have government introduced pip;wolverhampton crisis team mental health;chemists open Sunday wolverhampton; one voice Wolverhampton;flourish to be you;voluntary work; unfair dismissal; consumer rights; pals pendeford;25 bus route bilston; loans and grants from dwp; bereavement allowance 2014/15;new esa claims; access mobile phone;Free food Wolverhampton;

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Consultancy/Partnership WorkWe continue to do engage in a lot of disability expert partnership work with other organisations in Wolverhampton. This varies from facilitating groups so that the Council and other partners can consult with disabled people on various issues to advising on accessible communication and events, and having a say on local building projects such as the proposed Metro transport hub and the city centre improvements. Sometimes we take on an issue brought to us by disabled people, such as the new Blue Badge system, and set up meetings with service providers to work on improvements.

The time and resources put into these partnerships can vary. Sometimes staff and volunteers attend a one-off meeting and represent disabled people’s views as they have been expressed to us, or highlight disabling barriers.Other partnership work requires a more sustained commitment and involvement for the co-ordinator, volunteers, and One Voice members. This includes things like the work we do with Wolverhampton Homes on their equality panel, which oversees their policies and practices.

One Voice has continued to promote disabled people’s access needs or act as an expert advisor in a variety of projects, including Waste Management Services, The University, LGBT, Tenants Federation, Disabled Tenants Group, various council departments, Equality and diversity Group, and Wolverhampton Homes.

We have met our target in this area, and as well as providing expertise, we continue to ensure that disabled citizens can have a say in decisions that affect their lives.

ResearchWe did quite a lot of intensive research this year in order to provide publications, training or improved staff knowledge. We did this in a number of areas relevant now, and also on subjects that will require knowledge and expertise in the work we will be doing for the newly expanded Wolverhampton Advocacy Service.

The areas of research included: the Care Act, Deprivation of Liberty, general outlines of IMCA & IMHA, PIPS, Safeguarding, Pension Changes, Universal Credit, Community grants & Loans.We also did some primary research on disabled people’s access to the internet in light of the move towards “Digital by Default” services – We were surprised to learn that of the user groups we worked with, only around 24% had experience with or access to the internet, which paints an alarming picture in terms of disabled people’s access to benefits, housing and Council services in the future.

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TrainingWe produced some new training packages for One Voice use, some of these were for disabled people, some for any citizen, and some particularly for advocates as part of their in-service training.Our packages included: safeguarding, Care Act, PIPs short course, welfare benefits, ESA refresher and update.We also prepared and conducted some workshops to assist our advocates, staff and volunteers to complete their Distance Learning accredited training on Information Advice and Guidance, and Equality, which we have arranged with our partners at the city university. All of our trainees passed their accredited training modules.

We provided training sessions on pips, welfare benefits, safeguarding, advocacy, esa new regulations, office training, as well as training 4 new advocates and doing refresher training for our existing advocates.We also did workshops with disabled people’s groups on using the internet.Our training continues to be free to disabled people and their families.

Clients – representation and supportMuch of this work is now done via the advocacy services (these services, run by One Voice, have separate Annual Reports), but sometimes we have service users who want and need a higher level of support, and some non-directed advocacy because legal information and arguments or other complex negotiating is required.This includes things like benefits tribunals, Industrial Injuries boards, Care Appeals, Debt and Tenancy hearings etcWhere possible, we encourage the service user to have a more active participation in the service they get from us – the foundation of advocacy is to have the tools and support to help yourself, but sometimes that level of input is neither desired nor needed by the service user.

In addition to those seen via the advocacy services, we have also provided advice and representation for 41 people, this included 9 preparations and representations at tribunals (all successful), 1 upper tribunal case preparation and assistance, 4 legal submissions, two

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industrial injuries board case preparations, 3 employment tribunal hearings or disciplinary hearing preparations and various housing related issues including prospective loss of tenancy.

MeetingsWe had 1 mass meeting – the AGM.

We hosted meetings between council officers and disabled people’s groups on the proposed changed to the city centre.

We enabled 44 people to have a say about decisions affecting their lives.

We had 8 access meetings.

Promoting One VoiceWe exceeded this target, publicising One Voice at events, such as The Equality and Diversity Group, the Adult Services Information Day, University Mental Health Awareness Event, Low Hill Health & Wellbeing Event, City Show, a Housing Association Health & Wellbeing event, Blakeley Green House, Croft Residential Home, Midland Heat Event, Wolverhampton Federation of Tenants event. We also promoted our website and our services via a number of online facilities, including the City’s new information

website: wolvesnet.info, the YAmYam website, other disability groups, Wolverhampton Community Information Website, the Carers Directory, organisations in Wolverhampton, online, and via various listings. We also did talks about our services to 3 community groups.

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Part 2:Service User Equality Data

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This is the equality data for service users who use the projects funded by our core funding in 2014/15

Advocacy Service user data can be found in the annual reports for WHACS (Wolverhampton Health Advocacy Service) and the Generic Advocacy Project.

We encourage each service user that we meet face-to-face to fill in our user equality data forms. We also include some equality data on our training evaluation forms.We have had quite a lot of difficulty getting people to fill these in or return them to us, in common with many organisations, however our return rate has improved a lot on last year.

The breakdown of service users who completed forms is in various equality related pies below.

The number of user monitoring forms completed and returned: 140The number of Training evaluation forms completed with equality information 102Total 242

Sex/Gender Identity of users

Male45%

Female52%

trans3%

Ethnic Group of service users

Asian BritishAsian OtherBlack British Black AfricanBlack Caribbean White British White OtherOther

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Sexual Orientation of face-to-face service users

gay/lesbian

Bisexual

Heterosexual/straight

Prefer not to say/blank

Impairment identified by service user

mobility impairmentmental healthlearning disabilityhearing impairementvisual impairmentlong term conditionhand/armautismimpairment not specifiedfybromyalgiaback/spineblind/visual impairmenthearing impairementdiabeteslung/breathingorgan problemshands/arms

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Impairment-related requests/adjustmentsBefore we provide a face-to-face service for our users we ask them what reasonable adjustments they require in order to use the service. We have always been able to meet all of these adjustments, as we design all our services to be flexible and accessible to remove disabling barriers.

appropriate seating extra timebreaks home visitmultipe appointments easy to understandcommunity venue email/telephone servicespace to get up and sit down at appointment

write everything down

explain things a few times

evening appointment

someone who un-derstands me

no smells or chemicals

Under 18

19-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-65 65+ did not say

0102030405060

Age Range

Marital status/family status:

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marriedsingle/divorcedcivil partnershipliving w/familyprefer not to say/blank

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Part 3:One Voice work and City strategy

Organisations who get contracts to provide generalised services from Wolverhampton City Council must explain how the work they do helps the City Council to meet its targets for the city and its citizens.Below is an explanation of the relevant target outcomes that One Voice is contributing to with the work it does.1

Target: Improve the quality of life for residents The aims stated of One Voice, include:

-Improving the quality of life and services for citizens with impairments is fundemental to our purpose. We achieve this by providing One Voice services to disabled individuals and groups, encouraging disabled people to become involved and have a say on things that affect their lives as citizens, and by helping existing service providers to remove disabling barriers, and deliver services that are appropriate to disabled people’s needs and requirements.One of the ways in which we assist other service providers in providing better service delivery for disabled citizens is via our partnership work with a wide range of organisations such as

1

1 this report only examines how we are helping the council achieve its targets via our Community Initiatives core funding

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i) to bring together disabled people as one voice, with the aim of extending their rights and meeting their needs.

ii) to provide information, advice, and representation, and to raise awareness and campaign on issues concerned with disability.

iii) to provide other practical services that may be required by disabled people.


Wolverhampton Homes, various Council departments and officers, the well women’s centre, City-wide BME etc. Another way is by the leaflets, reports and guidance documents we publish, including How to Make Your Service Disability-friendly, Organising Accessible Meetings and Events, etcOur support services to disabled groups and individuals include information and advice that assists people in improving their choices and life chances, and one-to-one support such as advocacy, and representation.

Increasing participation

One Voice operates on the Disability Movement principle “Nothing about us without us”, so disabled people are encouraged and supported to get involved or have a say about the wide variety of decisions made that affect our lives. We either solicit disabled people’s views on issues via email, website, mailing list, telephone, or our access and transport groups, or we set up and facilitate disabled people’s attendance at consultation meetings and events where they can have a say about services and changes directly to decision-makers.

We have groups of disabled volunteers who reply to Government and local consultation papers on behalf of disabled people in Wolverhampton.

We encourage people to go to local meetings for themselves or on our behalf, or we set up meetings with decision makers so that a group of disabled people can have their say on a topic. We also go out to groups of disabled people to find out what issues are important to them in an environment they are comfortable with and feed back their issues, ideas and concerns to decision-makers.Since, disabled people often have many difficulties with attending public meetings and events, due to a wide range of access barriers, including the way meetings are run, start times, duration, access to and into a venue, lack of support at the meeting etc, we provide a document on our website or on request called “Organising accessible meetings and Events”, which was written by One Voice on the basis of what disabled people’s groups told us. We encourage all our partners to refer to this document. We also provide a more tailored information service to various agencies on how to make a meeting or event more accessible.Many of the disabled people we talk to or work with are not engaged in the democratic process, responses have ranged from lack of access, to lack of knowledge about what candidates stand for, to failure of candidates ‘address anything of interest to disabled people’.We put a lot of information on our website and in our Directory about how to get in touch with local councillors, how to become one, and ways in which to become involved.

Provide key public services from the voluntary sector

Most of our services to disabled people in effect increase the key public services delivered by the voluntary sector, either because they are unique services, or they are uniquely accessible.We also work with other agencies and organisations to help them to make their services more accessible. We do this through access audits, telephone or email advice, publications, and training.

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We have the expertise of a wide range of disabled people to draw upon via our Management Group and our membership, and this increases the quality and appropriateness of our services, and our advice to other service providers, in a way that other voluntary sector organisations are unable to match, because we provide a complete service for disabled people in many areas that is not wholly available or accessible elsewhere – for example in the area of employment we can and do assist an individual with applying for a job, preparing for interview, dealing with the benefits agency, dealing with disability related problems and work, knowing their rights and responsibilities under the Equality Act and other employment related legislation, supporting them in preparation for employment tribunals, providing information and advice on qualifications and training, providing information and advice on accessibility of training and potential reasonable adjustments, providing training and volunteering opportunities in an accessible and flexible environment2 etc.With regard to disability benefits we help people with applications, help them with tribunal preparation, and represent them at tribunal – this complete level of service is not provided anywhere else.These services are provided in an accessible environment, and in a way that does not create disabling barriers.

We provide training on disability related issues of very good quality that is not available elsewhere. Our training is highly respected and praised y the organisations we have worked for.

We provide an access auditing and advice service, including a “try it out service” where disabled people will try to use a service at the request of the provider, and highlight any difficulties and proposed solutions – this facility has been used by the Library service, Wolverhampton Homes and the Council website designers, amongst others.

We provide information and advice on a wide range of issues related to disabled people and their lives that is not available elsewhere, our online Directory gets a lot of traffic and is used by Council officers, the library service, and disabled individuals in Wolverhampton, and across the Country, and from other continents. Our Care Act 10 minute guide is reported by social workers to be a tool they use, as well as being used by carers and disabled people.

Increase volunteering

We provide a safe and flexible environment for disabled people to volunteer with us. All of our volunteers are disabled people, many have never volunteered before, some have volunteered elsewhere, but have had access or health/commitment difficulties that have led them to stop. We take on disabled people who may not get opportunities elsewhere. We take a flexible approach to what they do, and when they do it. Uniquely, we are flexible and supportive when people’s impairments or mental health conditions mean they want to stop

2 Reasonable Adjustments – as facilitated by the Equality Act

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volunteering. We keep in contact with them while they are not volunteering for us and offer them support, and in this way, people have come back to us after disability-related breaks in their volunteering.

Improve housing

One Voice plays a key role through our involvement with Wolverhampton Homes at the Equalities Circle Forum and the Equality & Diversity Steering Group in improving the quality of access afforded by public housing stock, and promoting disabled people’s needs. We have a substantial role in helping Wolverhampton Homes to develop and maintain barrier free policies and procedures, through our work with them as critical friends on their policy evaluation and monitoring bodies.

We have also advised individual officers on accessible communication, how to provide easy-read documents, how to manage the fuel supplier changeover accessibly, etc

We continue to offering guidance to officers and tenants on accessibility, policy and the equality duty.

Independent Living

Independent Living is at the core of what One Voice does – the 7 needs of Independent Living are:

Access to informationPeer support and counsellingHousingTechnical aids and equipmentPersonal assistanceTransportAccess to the built environment.3

We meet 6 of those needs via our work. We provide information on a wide variety of issues relating to disabled people’s lives interests, and needs, in a wide variety of formats, including: print, Plain English, Large Print, Braille, audio cd, signed video, and via website. We provide information and advice on housing, care, and aids and equipment, all of which are part of the 7 needs of Independent Living.

We provide peer support via our advocacy service. In some cases this type of support helps people to remain independent and in their homes, in all cases it allows our clients to pursue and support a reasonable quality of life. We are also licensed to provide help with debt and money management which helps people with their life 3 These needs are widely subscribed to by the disability movement and independent living centres, are listed in “Life chances for Disabled People” (p70-71) and are the basis for the Government health and wellbeing report “Better Outcomes, Lower Costs” (p17ff)

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quality and independence and has in some cases allowed people to continue living in their homes by making a settlement to prevent or halt repossession orders or loss of tenancy.

Disabled People need accessible housing and local facilities in order to live independently. We promote accessible housing with housing providers and advise on accessible design for new housing projects, our access work aims to increase access to wider community and social facilities also.

Transport is a major difficulty for many disabled people. We have contact with transport providers and our transport group works with the Taxi Licensing officers, Travel West Midlands, the Interchange Project, the Ring and Ride Users Group and the Transport Users Forum in order to promote disabled people’s transport needs. We also raise the issue of accessible parking and drop-off points on every building project where we are consulted.

We do a lot of access work: promoting the built environment, also, in all the work we do, with any of our partners, we use the opportunity to encourage them to think about removing disabling barriers – this can be obvious things like making sure a drop-in doesn’t happen in a building with only stepped entrance, to making sure meetings are conducted in a disability friendly manner. All of these interventions promote disabled people’s independence of involvement and quality of life.

Improve health & well-beingHealth and wellbeing can be a major problem for disabled people outside of their impairments– often ways of maintaining health – through healthy eating information, leisure & sport activities, or following exercise routines and using exercise equipment can be more difficult for disabled people because of problems of accessible venues, equipment, information.One Voice continues to work with leisure centres in Wolverhampton to ensure that disabling barriers are removed, and that new venues are as accessible as they can be.Through listening to disabled people’s groups we found that many could not do standard exercises because of impairment, and cannot afford to use paid facilities so One Voice commissioned and produced chairobics exercises for sedentary people. We have put the exercise leaflet on our website and in our newsletter, and all of One Voice’s General Meetings now begin with a Chairobics exercise session. We thus try to promote a healthier lifestyle in a simple practical way.

Increase employabilityDisabled people are more likely to be unemployed than their non-disabled counterparts – fewer than 50% of disabled people of working age are in employment, for many disabled people lack of work experience, or few opportunities to volunteer in an accessible environment is a huge disabling barrier.One Voice continues to take on disabled volunteers who are on disability benefits such as Employment Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payment. Many of these people have never worked, or not worked since their period of incapacity.Disabled adults are 3 times more likely to have no qualifications, compared to adults without a disability, and this lack of qualifications is a major barrier to many disabled people’s

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employment opportunities.4

Other agencies, including Disability Employment Advisors from the DWP have referred people to us for volunteering opportunities. We provide a first step for them into a more regulated world, as well as providing an opportunity to learn new skills, which will help in moving towards work. In the last year volunteers have gone on to full or part time work, taken up a course, or trained with us to become paid advocates.We also provide a general service for any disabled individuals helping them with job applications, and interview preparation.We provide advice and help on what to do when disabled employees are having impairment related problems at work, and to try to help them work with their employers to stay in the jobIn these ways we contribute uniquely to the City’s targets on employability and reducing capacity.

Part 4:4 Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey

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Qualitative Monitoring

We assess the quality of our services based on the feedback we get from users.

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We get feedback from our Comments, Compliments and Complaints Form, and evaluation forms from training. Also people email us or call us to give feedback in their own way, a tiny minority fill in a website feedback form. Some people send us cards or biscuits or chocolates for the staff.

Training Evaluation FormsAll the people who attended one of our training course in the last year described our training as “Good” (1%); Very good (40%) or excellent (59%)

These are some of the comments on the training we conducted:

Comments, Complaints and ComplimentsOur procedure is to respond to complaints or suggestions directly and also to put in the annual report the complaint and what we have done about it.This year we had 2 complaints/suggestions about the same thing – that One Voice needs more publicity, so that more people know about it.This year we have increased the events we attend, and done talks or handed out leaflets to a wider range of citizens.Our website and service is advertised on more websites in Wolverhampton and we are listed in online and print Directories of local services.We have tried to increase outreach work and knowledge of our services. We acknowledge this is a perennial problem, and it is unlikely that all citizens will ever know about us. It is also worth noting that people who come to us and say that we are not well publicised have found their way to us, and word-of-mouth from past service users plays an important part in people finding out about us. But we will continue to let new groups and organisations know about us, and take every opportunity to publicise One Voice

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“I learnt a lot from the training and found the trainer approachable friendly and very professional”

“good ”

“Answered all the questions I need to know”

“what a fantastic trainer – inspirational”

“Absolutely outstanding course”

“Quite interesting and absorbing”

“This is a very good course I have learned a lot, even though I am working as an advocate already, this course was very helpful”


Here are some of the comments & compliments received:

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● ● ●“Great website”

“Im so glad i found you”

“Very good help and tea” (!)

“The home visit [helped] – I was not so exhausted”

“A very good service because of the time spent, invaluable”

“It was good for Karen to work on my behalf”

“Excellent compassionate service”

“Very very helpful – so grateful that we could get help from this service”

“of a high standard”

“I get very tired and Karen was able to see this and offered to help me over 2 appointments, which i gladly accepted”

“There should be more publicity about all the good work One Voice does”

“They’ve been brilliant”

“I always get an appointment really quickly, and they make sure to not make me exhausted because of fibromyalgia”

“everyone shoud have a One Voice!”

“very Helpful”

“Very Happy i was given lots of advise and information” (sic)

“relieved I have someone to help me”

“it [newsletter] is very informative – well done”

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Documents

One Voice Annual Report 2014-15One Voice Annual Report 2014-15. 14th July, ... which paints an alarming picture in terms of disabled ... and word-of-mouth from past service users plays