LGBT MENTAL HEALTH FORUM Friday 10th February – 10am – 12 noon For service users, workers and significant others – have your say about Mental Health services, share information and ideas about good practice. Make a difference and affect good practice in Wolverhampton. LOCATION: Meeting Room, WVSC, 16 Temple Street, Wolverhampton. WV2 4AN.

VALENTINES CELEBRATION Tuesday 14th February – 7pm For singles and couples, fun and games followed by a disco. All welcome, come along for some fun, light refreshments provided. Bring a bottle LOCATION: The Mill House, 5b Bridgnorth Road, Wolverhampton. WV6 8AB.

FREE FILM: DESERT HEARTS Thursday 16th February – 6:30pm Synopsis: It is 1950s Nevada, and Professor Vivian Bell arrives to get a divorce. She’s unsatisfied with her marriage, and feels out of place at the ranch she stays on, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Cay Rivers, an open and self-assured lesbian, and the ranchowner’s daughter. The emotions released by their developing intimacy, and Vivian’s insecurities about her feelings towards Cay, are played out against a backdrop of rocky landscapes and country and western songs. LOCATION: The Greyhound, 14 Bond Street, Wolverhampton. WV2 4AS.

LGBT ART AND HISTORY CRAFT DAY Saturday 18th February – 11am – 3pm Come along and have some fun with arts and crafts inspired by some past LGBT artists. LOCATION: TBA – Call 01902 425092 or email Martha@lgbtwolverhampton.org.uk for more details.

LGBT MENTAL HEALTH DISPLAY Monday 20th – 24th February In partnership with the Mental Health Empowerment Team. LOCATION: Penn Hospital, Penn Road, Wolverhampton. WV4 5HN.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, AND WHAT TO DO WHEN IT GOES WRONG Wednesday 22nd February – 10am – 3pm lgbt Hate Crime/incident awareness and reporting training. Free for LGBT people who live in Wolverhampton. To book your place please EMAIL: Martha@lgbtwolverhampton.org.uk or CALL: 01902 425092.

FREE FILM: GAY BIRMINGHAM: BACK TO BACK Wednesday 29th February – 7pm Synopsis: Join Women & Theatre as they journey through Birmingham’s uncovered LGBT past. Meet Charles, a manual labourer from the 1840s committed to All Saints Asylum for ‘committing unnatural acts’. Meet Fred ‘Freda’ Barnes a Saltley-born butchers boy turned Music Hall Megastar of the 1920s; flamboyant, disgraced and forgotten. In the 1940s meet Annette, wife and mother, as she looks back on meeting the love of her life in wartime inner city Birmingham. And finally meet Leila, a young woman from 2011 searching to find evidence of Someone Like Her in the 1970’s. What can she piece together from the snippets she finds in the old tailors shop? LOCATION: The Greyhound, 14 Bond Street, Wolverhampton. WV2 4AS.

From April 2013, councils will be given a ring-fenced budget to deliver public health outcomes. In Wolverhampton, we are making this change early and the public health workforce from the PCT is already working in shadow form at the council

Public health will be measured against a framework which sets out 66 health measures so councils are able to see real improvements being made and take any action needed. The NHS and Adult Social Care have similar national frameworks and locally a Children’s framework has also been developed.

Public Health measures include:

• fewer children under 5 will have tooth decay
• people will weigh less
• more women will breastfeed their babies
• fewer over 65s will suffer falls
• fewer people will smoke
• fewer people will die from heart disease and stroke
• school attendance
• domestic abuse
• homelessness
• air pollution.

In Wolverhampton, we have gathered data on all the 66 outcomes to review how we are performing in these important areas. Copies of this data are available on request.

A Public Health delivery board will be will be responsible for the outcomes in the Public Health Outcome Framework. This will include:

• Commissioning services that support these outcomes. For example, Healthy Lifestyle Service supports Health Check delivery, smoking prevalence, obesity prevalence etc.
• Liaison with the new Public Health England to ensure quality of screening and immunization services locally and to deliver Health Protection services.
• Supporting the NHS commissioning to support the NHS to deliver the outcomes in the NHS outcome framework.
• Emergency planning
• Coordinating Wolverhampton’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
• Supporting the development of the Health and Wellbeing Board

Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB)

Health and Wellbeing Boards are at the heart of the government’s plans to transform health and care and achieve better population health and wellbeing. In Wolverhampton, the shadow Board is chaired by Councillor John Reynolds and membership includes Councillors, GPs, Council Strategic Directors, Director of Public Health and LINk Board member. They are in the process of developing a strategy based on Wolverhampton’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment which will be completed by May 2012. The Public Health delivery board will feed into the Health and Wellbeing Board, as will groups responsible for outcomes in the other frameworks.

The government fought off a fresh challenge to its controversial Welfare Reform bill on 17^th January, when peers rejected a proposal to delay the full introduction of slashed new disability payments after ministers offered concessions.As the cabinet hardened its tactics by agreeing to overturn a series of defeats in the House of Lords last week, a cross-party group of peers failed to introduce a pilot scheme before a new regime for disability allowances can be fully introduced.

Peers voted by 229 to 213, a government majority of 16, to reject an amendment tabled by Lady Grey-Thompson, one of Britain’s most successful disabled athletes, after the government warned her plan would cost £1.4bn. The government is planning to replace the working age disability living allowance (DLA) with a new personal independent payment (PIP) which will involve a more rigorous assessment system. The government aims to cut costs by 20%.

Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, promised to test the operational processes of the new payment system. He said the government would hold two biennial independent reviews in the first four years of the new PIP system. The failure to amend the bill is likely to embolden the cabinet which agreed at its weekly meeting on Monday to overturn the triple defeat it suffered last week, when peers rejected plans on proposed benefit cuts in the welfare reform bill. Only two Liberal Democrat peers have now rebelled.

 Source: Guardian

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/17/welfare-reform-bill-amendment-blocked

18^th January 2012

Even Boris Johnson thinks the Government’s planned reforms of disability living allowance arer wrong and Continue Reading

£16,000 Million in unclaimed benefits and tax credits. The DWP have published research showing millions of people who are entitled miss out on benefits and tax credits every year.  The main means tested benefits- £6,300 – £10,500 million was left unclaimed in 2007- 08.  Tax Credits- £6,000 million was left unclaimed in 2007-08. In particular- Housing Benefit £1,350 – £2,470 million goes unclaimed each year. 600,000 – 990,000 people lose out. Pension Credit has seen a 10% rise in those claiming since 1997 probably due to the Governments pro active approach to encouraging claims.

I wanted to take this opportunity to brief you on developments regarding our estates portfolio and proposed changes to the opening hours of some front offices as part of an ongoing commitment to modernise the force.

The force is committed to maintaining officers in neighbourhood roles and to maintaining accessible public enquiry offices. We are also determined that they should be located at the very heart of the communities they serve.   However, for reasons already outlined, we are exploring new ways of running front offices and working with our partners to share buildings, reduce costs and make services more joined up.

The estates review has found that some of our buildings are no longer suitable or fit for purpose – many are either too expensive to maintain or are in the wrong location to provide the best service to our communities. None of the buildings being considered are open to the public and the cost of running them could be better spent on front line policing.

The review of front offices found that public demand is very low in the evenings and overnight and recommended that staff be redeployed back into contact centres to increase the efficiency of call handling.  As a result of the review, in January next year we are proposing changes to the opening times of 12 front offices, nine of which are currently open 24/7, with three open between 7am-10pm. Over the next 12 months we are also proposing to cease working from some buildings across the force.

The opening hours in our area is as follows: Wednesfield, Wolverhampton 24/7 10.00am to 18.00pm

Under the proposals, 11 front offices will remain open 24/7, 21 will open between 10am-6pm, one will be open 8am-8pm daily and a further 22 will remain open to the public at other times, dependent on local needs.
In total, West Midlands Police will continue to provide 65 front offices open to the public; a service to local communities far wider than most other police forces offer across the country. Under the new arrangements, the households will never be more than four miles from a 24/7 police station across the region.

The Centre for Welfare Reform has produced a guide for disabled campaigners called “Using the Law to fight the Cuts”.

You can download

Continue Reading

Leonard Cheshire Campaigns team are launching an access campaign and want disabled people’s help.

They are calling on disabled people who take photos or do designs or artwork to produce some images that help show the access problems disabled people face every day, and they will judge the best entry.

If you want to send in an entry go here>>>>

If you want to fill out some access surveys, go here>>>

If you want to do some access work with One Voice, contact us

In 3 months comes the biggest threat to our benefits and our right to control our lives – if we dont act NOW!
The Government has a green paper out for discussion, which proposes to stop paying ‘disability benefits’ – the Government is deliberately vague about what benefits they are talking about – then when it beocmes law, they can attack any disability benefit.
The plan is to take the money away from disabled people and give it to social services – many disabled people have trouble getting the care they want from social services, without having this money and independence took away.
This is all about saving money because of the loads of dosh they gave to banks – so disabled people, who aren’t exactly rolling in it, are being unfairly hit to pay for rich bankers mess-ups.
Benefits and Work – the benefits advice organisation is starting a campaign to save our benefits

They are looking for disabled people to join up – I am!