People First (Fraserburgh) - 1 staff member, 20 volunteers
Self-advocacy for people with learning difficulties
People First (Fraserburgh) is a self-advocacy
organisation run by and for people with learning difficulties.
Steve Robertson, a Management Committee (MC) member,
explains: 'A lot of organisations are tokenistic
about involving service users. But it's central to what
we do, to the extent that everybody on the MC has a
learning difficulty. When MC's are
mixed, often more value is placed on the experience
of people without learning difficulties and their ability
to articulate their views than on the knowledge and
understanding of people with learning difficulties themselves.
However, our MC can call on two advisors to give us
information about things that we have no direct experience
of. These advisors have an information role and are
not involved in the actual decisions.
'There is sometimes the assumption that if people with
learning difficulties are given the freedom to run things
they'll make odd decisions, but in reality that doesn't
happen. We have a wide range of abilities
on the MC but as long as we have enough time to take
in the information and facts, we make the appropriate
decisions to run a successful organisation. Although
important decisions may take a long time, we feel that
the decisions are more inclusive and therefore of better
quality than those made by many other committees.'
Keith Weeks, Project Co-ordinator adds: 'In reality,
many conventional MC's tend to be dominated by one or
two forceful people who everyone else defers to. The
nuts and bolts of decision-making are often done by
a very small minority and then just
agreed by everyone else. In other cases decisions can
become a battle between two opposed viewpoints. Silence
is often taken for agreement when in fact it may indicate
a lack of confidence or the knowledge to challenge other
points of view.'
Steve Robertson agrees: 'We believe that People First
is a good model for MCs in general, because we make
sure that everyone has their say. Although
we make final decisions on a majority vote there is,
in practice, usually a process of building consensus
and understanding before we take a vote.'
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