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Meeting Details
Date: 13 October 2021
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: Microsoft Teams Meeting
Agenda Item 1: Welcome and Introduction
1.1 Welcome and introductions made. Communication prompts posted to the Teams Chat window, and their use explained. No reasonable adjustments were requested. Members reported no declaration of interest.
1.2 As Trevor Key was unavailable for today’s meeting, Adrian Grant acted as co-chair in his place.
Agenda Item 2: Minutes of previous meeting July 14 2021 and matters arising not on the agenda.
2.1 Agreed: Minutes of previous meeting accepted as true record of the meeting. Will be added to the NAP Webpages.
2.2 Actions from the Meeting held 14/04/21
2.2 Item 2.3.1: Complete. Rather than a discrete Data Update, the figures provided by Tracey were included with relevant Working Group Updates.
Item 2.3.2: work ongoing, with a new run of Autism Norfolk Forums arranged. Progress on actions given as part of Engagement Working Group.
2.3 Item 2.3.3: Messages sent by co-chairs.
Item 2.4.2: Complete.
Item 3.3: Complete.
Item 4.3: Complete.
Item 4.4: Complete (?)
Item 5.1: Complete
Agenda Item 3: Working Group Highlight Reports
3.1 Workforce Development lead reports that progress is being made despite some initial hesitation from Children’s Services. As of October 2021, 36% of all
NCC staff have completed autism eLearning, including 64% of all Adult Social Services Staff and 47% of Children’s Services Staff. 22% of Adult Social Service’s Staff and 32% of Children’s Services Staff have completed the “Understanding Autism” face-to face training. A further 420 colleagues have been booked to complete training by March 2022, which will significantly improve these figures. Schools have their own systems, so these figures are not included. Oliver McGowan training is expected to be released in 2022/23, so Partnership will continue to support its own training. Efforts underway to gift training to other organisations alongside “train-the-trainer” programs. While there has been some interest from Primary Carers in receiving the training they rarely follow-up.
Action: Rebecca Crossley, Tracey McLean and Hannah Riches to link up after meeting to investigate avenues for Primary Care training.
3.2 Diagnosis Working Group continues to actively monitor situation. Group is currently investigating ways to improve direct representation by autistic people and how to move away from its current, professional focussed format.
3.3 The Engagement Working Group has led on restarting the Autism Norfolk Forums as a hybrid in person/online group, with the first meeting on 21 September going very successfully. Feedback from members of the public generated by the Forum submitted to the Board as a verbal update. Based on feedback, the next Forum will be focussed on Mental Health Services. The independent Partnership website continues to develop and is now highly ranked in Google search engine results.
3.4 The Document Working Group continues to update and refine Partnership documents. Terms of Reference and application form slated to be approved in this Board meeting (see 4.1 below).
3.5 Following the last Board meeting, a new Employment Working Group has been set up. As of the 13 October it has only met once, but group lead considers it a positive start.
3.6 After a short discussion, Board decided to explore setting up a new Education Working Group in the near future.
Action: Maxine Blocksidge to work with Admin and Partnership Manager on setting up Education Working Group.
Agenda Item 4 : Partnership Document Approval
4.1 Terms of Reference and Application Form sent to members ahead of meeting to read and comment.
Agreed: Documents approved.
Agenda Item 5 : Presentation: Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board (NSAB) & Safeguarding Adults Reviews with Heather Roach
5.1 Following release of Adult Safeguarding Reviews on former Cawston Park Hospital residents, Heather Roach gave a presentation for the Autism Partnership
on the situation and next steps. Easy Read versions of the reviews were sent along with meeting documents, with a link to the full version for those who wished for more detail.
5.2 Heather explained the purpose of Safeguarding Adult Reviews, outlined the circumstances which led to her reviews and the involvement of the NSAB, and what will happen as the next steps. Discussion followed around what the NAPB can do to help.
5.3 Action: Lee Gibbons and Heather Roach will work together on bringing an item on this to the next Autism Norfolk Forum.
Agenda Item 6 : Any Other Business and Wellbeing Check
6.1 The Board gave its sincere thanks to former members Sue Bridges and Rosemary Boutet for their dedicated service.
6.2 Following discussion, the next Board meeting will focus on a presentation on National Autism strategy and refreshing the Board’s membership and makeup.
6.3 Wellbeing check performed via email survey.
Date, time and location of next meeting
-Wednesday 12 January 2022, 10am – 12pm
-Tuesday 14 April 2022, 10am – 12pm
-Wednesday 13 July 2022, 10am – 12pm
-Tuesday 11 October 2022, 11am – 1pm