Welcome to my Personal MakatonLDND Ambassador Blog ! You can read why I started the MakatonLDND petition on MakatonLDND Founders page
Well can you believe the website has been up a whole month ! we’ve had over 1,000 people view the website which is a overwhelming start. Thank You ! If you could give the website follower that be fantastic and sign the petition . Time for my Second blog
So much has happened, not sure where to start ? ??
Lets start with the interview for The National Learning Disabilities & Autism Award , they asked lots of question which I think I answered okay. And once I started talking I couldn’t stop and started talking about pot holes in roads. which sounds really bad when I type it and read it back.
Let me just reverse up a little and explain the pot hole remark, so I was asked the question why I started the petition which you already know from my other blogs. And my brain and mouth went into ” you know when your driving and you drive round that huge pot hole and everyone else dose the same thing , you talk to people and complain about it, how it should be fixed and why its not but you never actually doing anything. Well I didn’t want to keep driving round , I wanted to fix’s the pot hole so everyone could have a safe road.
Maybe I shouldn’t expanded any more on my analogy! what can I say I’m not the greatest speaker but I do hope that a few of you understand what I was trying to say. And I hope that I represented the petition to the highest level and its meaning because I really do want the petition to achieve its goal so that one day I will hear from people that when they saw there nurses that they could sign to them and there concerns and wishes were understood in Makaton. That they didn’t feel isolated or miss understood.
Next week is a very busy week, its learning disability awareness week and I’ve taken the week off work to be apart of lots of different events, I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and going into the schools Tuesday because we can get children thinking about Makaton and communication. And how that everyone should be able to comminate how they feel about there health. Then we have made a difference because those children one day will be adults and they can make a difference to society.
We Also have our letter on our resource page which you can sign and send to your local MP. Were in the process of putting Easy Reads together and also have Pecs symbols which you can print off and laminate.
I will be honest the Manifesto is now my next greatest mission so far I have Manifesto on a page with few bullet points. But we do now have MakatonLDND teddies and magnetics, yes that was me re directing the conversation away from manifesto.
I’m hoping we will get little feedback from the website pages and blogs, if the contents is interesting, relevant , what you’d like to know more of or less of .
Very First Blog………..
So the website is up and running! still lots to add but that’s okay its a work in progress. I’m really looking forward to what’s happening in the next few months. I have the interview for the Award we have been shortlisted for eeek. You may have seen it on our home page. The National learning disabilities and Autism award ” The Breaking Down Barrier Individual Award 2023″ I must admit I’m pretty nervous because if we won this would really highlight the petition and make it more known to people not much pressure. Its also pretty scary because the others that have been shortlisted have done such outstanding work so just being nominated is very cool . Also a chance to talk about petition and the great work we do.
Its 10 minute interview and really all I want to say is that the petition is about breaking down barriers of communication but that would be really short interview. So I better get some more points down on paper but the trouble is 10 minutes wont be enough.
I’m also hoping that I can join another table for the actual evening Award events as its £150 per person and well most of the resources come out of my wage packet which to me is so worth it. If I can in some way improve other experiences, then its defiantly worth it. So many people have shared their stories with me and it really shocks me every time when I get told they don’t even acknowledge them when they speak to health professionals because they cant sign or presume their not interested in their own health care.
This is down to shortage of learning disability nurses coming into the profession. Out of all the fields of nursing we still lack the most funding and some university have stopped offering the degree . And also learning disability nurses not being able to apply for some nursing roles. Even though we support patients from all ages and have all clinical training. I also feel that learning disability student nurses and learning disability nurses do and would welcome the training . And this has been the feedback I and others have received. More importantly from the people that use Makaton and their families.
What do you think ? Do you think it should be on the degree ? Would you welcome the training ? I would be really interested in your view