CASBA’s celebration of the year is always a very special event and this year was no different.

Staff, volunteers, citizens and stakeholders came together to hear powerful stories of the changes citizens have made by speaking up and being heard.

Ambassadors and LINK shared how they had secured a £5,000 grant from Northfield NNS to help CASBA develop its Easy Read business. Eight Birmingham citizens with learning disabilities have been trained and four have been working regularly on the panel. They’ve been checking documents about proposed changes to the buses, a guide on how to cope in winter and helping CASBA get all its policies into Easy Read.

Click the button below to out more:

Staff and citizens shared stories about how CASBA projects had helped them at difficult times and Jen Pregnancy to Parenthood’s Project Officer, shared why she works on the project:

‘I want to use my lived experience so no one has to go through what I went through when I had my baby. As soon as he was born he was taken away and I didn’t know where he’d gone. I didn’t find out until late in the day that he’d been taken to the special baby care unit. I was worried all day about what had happened to him. Sharing my story is part of my work on Pregnancy to Parenthood. I work with my colleagues to make sure children and babies get the best start in life and families stay together. It’s very, very important.’

Feedback on the event was amazing ‘Best AGM ever!’ ‘Brilliant’ and this feedback from Paul Allen at Shared Lives ‘It’s incredibly powerful when people with lived experience share their experience, making you realise this can often only be achieved through the support of advocates. Through the voices I heard today, it is clear that CASBA continue to make a big difference to the lives of so many.’

CASBA’s CEO Ginny Cullen announced that their new online version of the Voices of the Parents parenting course is now online and has secured its first customers. She said ‘I’m delighted to announce that local professionals are already using the course and next year the course will become part of a university curriculum. Newman University are trailing the course for its social work students.’ Ginny said ‘It’s great news that our training course to support professionals to better understand how to work with parents with learning disabilities is now online. It means our citizens lived experience will have ever wider impact while generating an income for our work’

For further information click the button below: