Promoting Advocacy with people with learning difficulties from black and minority ethnic communities 

by Mark Brookes

In 2005 VIA got some money from the Department of Health to look at advocacy with people with learning difficulties from BME (black and minority ethnic) communities. One of the things we found during our big Advocacy Project 2001-2004 was that many self advocacy groups were struggling to include black people with learning difficulties.

The project worker, Mark Brookes, spent two years working with self-advocacy groups around England to explore this issue. During the first year of the project, Mark ran 20 workshops to gather people’s views. In the second year, he worked closely with 5 groups in Portsmouth, Dudley, London, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent to work on the issues in more detail.

1. Information - Many people with learning difficulties from BME communities don’t have very good information about self-advocacy in their area and self-advocacy groups don’t have very good information about their local BME communities.

2. Culture - People with learning difficulties from BME communities can feel excluded by mainstream culture if it doesn’t recognise different cultural and religions traditions.

3. Language - Some people need information in a language other than English, whether in writing or spoken.

4. Family Issues – It is important that diverse family and community backgrounds are taken into account by self-advocacy groups.

5. Trust – If people don’t know each other, then it’s harder to build trust between the diverse range of people with learning difficulties in the UK.

VIA’s has a factsheet with information about the project, discussion of the issues and ideas for action. The factsheet will be ready at the end of March 2007, for a small charge. If you would like a copy please get in touch.  

© 2007 Values Into Action