Access for All 

Cerebral Palsy Midlands support our citizens to get out and access the community, promoting social interaction and combating social isolation. We encourage our citizens to access leisure activities, shopping trips, bowling, cinema visits, events, medical and GP appointments, Council consultation groups, day trips, short breaks and more. 

 

This is an essential part of our service, enabling our citizens to get out and about and to be an integral part of the community knowing what services they can access. 

 

We ensure that all trips are risk assessed, managed, well staffed with the right care. We check the accessibility of any venue or location for those with mobility impairments. We also have to have drivers, escorts and care staff who are fully trained to meet the needs of our client group in any community outing. 

 

We promote a positive and inclusive experience, we plan the trips to suit that needs of the client group. That may be checking whether the venue we are attending has a ramp or lift or widened doors and other aspects like disabled parking. It may be that we need to ensure the place we are attending has not just ordinary toilets but 'changing place' facilities. Other aspects to this planning may mean we need to check whether the restaurant can cater for those with allergies and/or dysphagia, which may mean food may well need to be blended to suit an individuals needs. In some instances, depending on the activity we may need to ensure that have hoists and slings available for a person to get from their chair to carry out the activity. There is a lot we have to think about and plan ahead. And, we know from research we have carried out with Plymouth University in recent years that our communities are not fully accessible;