How to get involved

#107days Take Two

We’re not offering days for adoption this year but will seek input via the blog.

If you participated in #107days last year (2014) by adopting a day, spreading the word or joining in on social media, then we’d love to hear from you:

Name(required)

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Website

How did you get involved in 2014?(required)

Adopted a day Completed an action Raised awareness Combination of the above

What did you do to support #107days in 2014?

What difference did #107days make to you?

Do you think #107days had an impact on other people? If so, how?

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It’s Day 99 and it felt like we should update this post once more. There are a number of actions you can take still to support #JusticeforLB:

July 4: Day 107

We have given much thought to how to mark the 107th day, which is the first anniversary of LB’s death. One collective action we would like people to take if they wish to join in is to download our profile pic below (right click on the image will allow you to save it to your computer and you can then upload it to twitter), and change your twitter profile pic for the day.

We hope that the impact of this will be quite striking, and a fitting way to remember him, and the impact of his legacy, together. For maximum impact we ask you not to do this ahead of July 4th and to only use it for the day, but we very much hope you’ll join us. More information on what next after 107days will follow on the day.

Web-chat 

Next Monday we are very lucky to have Steve Broach, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, answering your (general) legal questions. You can ask them now, or live on the evening. This is a great opportunity to learn more about your legal rights as a parent of a young person with a disability. Please do read more here and join in, giving a donation to LB’s Fighting Fund if you can.

Spend, spend, spend

Jack’s Cat’s – recycled cats for the bargain price of £3, all proceeds to LB’s Fighting Fund

EP for LB – now available to download on iTunes

LB’s postcards and art – available to purchase

Act now – do something

Drops of brilliance – have a think, identify a person or act that has helped, and share

Draw us a bus – draw, snap and share

Postcards of Awesome – you still have time to send us a postcard

 

As we start to come towards the end of the #107days campaign (we’re now in the final quarter of the campaign) we are starting to think about what next. We promise that we will keep people informed and we will continue to ensure that any JusticeforLB action is decided in response to the ‘crowd’ that have supported us (yes, that’s you, and you, and you). That said, we are also keen to ensure the last quarter of the campaign gets as much focus as that which has already passed, so we’re not going to move into ‘what next’ planning just yet. We will continue with our daily posts and actions (although many of the days that follow have been shared so you get twice as much brilliance in a day), we will continue gathering messages and feedback about impact, and after the #107days have been and gone, and we’ve had some time out to remember LB and reflect on how brilliant this has all been, then we will move into ‘what next’. There are still one or two opportunities to get directly involved now though…

Justice for Nico
One of the many results of sharing LB’s story, is that others have got in touch in solidarity, some sharing their own harrowing experiences. A number of these have related to Southern Health, who were ‘caring’ for LB at the time of his death. The parallels are striking, two sons with a learning disability, loving families and good experiences of care and support that ensured these dudes thrived throughout their childhood and adolescence. Then the switch to adult services, the wrangles over whose responsibility this care and support is (or should be), the ever argued budgets and the lack of decent, genuinely person-centred support, to enable these young men to survive, never mind flourish, into happy and healthy citizens. Two interested and engaged sets of parents, warning of the worse case scenario, doing all they could to secure good care, agitating over the need for the basics to be covered, imploring care staff to take note of their physical needs.

Then, those phonecalls. An incomprehensible situation, a rush to the hospital, two beautiful dudes with their futures stubbed out. Two lives cut short, two families devastated, and perhaps worse of all, two fights for answers. Fights that no-one prepares or trains you for, fights that shouldn’t need fighting, fights that are relentless, with no end bell in sight. In the unimaginable situation of your son’s death, surely the least you can expect is some transparency and honesty. Nothing can right that wrong, so at least allow a family to get answers and explanations that will allow them to start their grieving process.

Who was ultimately accountable and providing the ‘care’ when the unimaginable happened in both of these cases, Ridgeway Trust (that was amalgamated into Southern Health) and Southern Health. Who has been responsible for the enduring pain and nightmare ever since, yep you guessed it Katrina Percy, CEO and her band of incompetents (allegedly) at Southern Health.

Two families fobbed off, two families left facing the previously unimaginable situation of needing to fundraise to afford legal representation, two families broken hearted. Two families whose experience is the anti-definition of candour. Two families whose ability to grieve and celebrate the lives of their dudes is on ice, as the very first steps of knowing how and why can not be completed. Rather than a journey of grief, they’re left pacing in a holding bay, desperately searching for answers.

Nico’s family have been fighting their fight for Justice for 317 days longer than LB’s family and friends. Yes, you read correctly, almost an entire year longer and still no closer to answers. Southern Health have in this time behaved in the way we have become accustomed to. Nico’s parents were kept in the dark, their requests for information wilfully unheard, as it had been in the year running up to his death. They had to wait nine months to find out the basics, even then no common decency at play, they had to read what happened in a coroner’s report. Ever the professionals, Southern Health conducted a ‘Root Cause Analysis’ after deciding themselves that no external investigation was required. What did this analysis find? Your guess is as good as anyone’s, the results weren’t shared with Nico’s family. Why? Wait for it, olympic standard levels of candour kicking in now…..“It was felt that it may be too distressing for you”. 

Why are we telling you this? One of the things that you can do to support #JusticeforLB is share your support with the family and friends of Nico. You can read in much more detail Nico’s family’s experience in this blogpost, The dust in the corner – JusticeforNico shared on their behalf by Gail. We’d suggest that you take a read and then take the time to contact Nico’s mum on twitter here, and let her know that you’ve got her back. After years of fighting we reckon she could do with a solidarity hit. Our campaign is inspired by LB, but one thing is for sure #JusticeforLB has always been about Justice for all Dudes.

In the meantime what follows are just some of the ways in which you can still support #JusticeforLB. Where an item is in [square brackets] it indicates that a date has passed or stock is no longer available. Please take a look and get involved if you can. Thank you.

Now we’re into the #107days most of our days are adopted. We still have room for a few more so drop us a line below if you’re interested. We have also received some amazing offers, and there are some amazing events planned, all of which need your support to be a success. So this page will evolve to list the opportunities that exist for you to get involved further with the #107days campaign;

Conferences, workshops and learning opportunities

[Learning disability studies in academia – Monday 9 June – Manchester (Day 82)]

[Keeping me at the heart of care – Thursday 12 June – London (Day 85)]

[Our Voices, Our Choices, Our Freedom – Thursday 26 June – Leeds (Day 99)]

Spend, spend, spend

EP for LB – now available to download on iTunes

[Limited Edition LB Bus Pencil Cases – only 25 available for pre-order]

LB’s postcards and art – available to purchase

Act now – do something

Drops of brilliance – have a think, identify a person or act that has helped, and share

Draw us a bus – draw, snap and share

[LB’s Justice Quilt – you just have to send a patch and our stitchers will do the rest – need to be received by 31 May]

[Letter for Connor – visit the post and complete the form to add your name to our letter by 13 June]

Postcards of Awesome – you still have time to send us a postcard

Fun and laughs

[Party Night – Saturday 31 May – everyone welcome]

[My son’s not rainman – Thursday 15 May – comedy performance, tickets available (Day 57)]

[107 Red Balloons – Sunday 18 May – come join in (Day 60)]

Adopting a day
We would like your help. Please. We are looking for people to get involved with #107days, and take actions, large and small, individual or collective. We need your help to share responsibility for the actions that take place. One option is that you can volunteer to ‘adopt’ a particular day, some are already reserved for pre-booked activities but we have about 100 to fill. It may be that you organise a fundraising activity, that you have a conversation with someone about LB, that you take a photo and share it on twitter, that you send a postcard on that day, that you give a lecture, or share your own reflections.

Anything you like, big or small, it all contributes. The second option is that you set yourself a target for an action that you will complete within the 107 days. We know that many people have completed actions during the #107days period that they didn’t adopt a day for, but we believe that they are vital to our campaign and we’d like to ensure we have a record of them all. So, if you have done anything that isn’t already reported on this blog, please use the form at the bottom of the page and drop us an email about ‘Option 2’ actions so that we know what you’ve been up to. We’d really like a record of all the actions taken. Forgive us, we probably won’t reply to your email immediately but we’ll then have your details and be able to contact you when we move into the ‘what next’ phase of #JusticeforLB. Thank you.

We would like the focus to be on positive actions at this stage. You could choose to raise funds to support legal costs, to have conversations, to write letters or blog, we need fundraisers, conversationalists and writers. We also welcome social media evangelists, artists and reflectors. We will keep a record of all the actions achieved across the 107 days and will share suggested actions on twitter and facebook using the hashtags #JusticeforLB and #107days. If you’d like to adopt a day or suggest an action please do reply below: