Lemos&Crane’s new free website, Action Against Cruelty, provides practitioners and service users with guidance on tackling cruelty towards people with learning disabilities. Welcome to our newsletter. Simply click the links to login and read more in each section. Click here if you do not have a password.

This newsletter focuses on the Safeguarding section of the website, which details the procedure and protocol for safeguarding vulnerable adults against cruelty, harassment and abuse. This section includes:

  
Safeguarding: policy introduction
This introductory page introduces the concept of safeguarding in context of services for adults with learning disabilities. This covers the tiers of responsibility and management of safeguarding practice, including the Department of Health key principles of safeguarding practice.

Safeguarding procedures
This section outlines the key procedural stages of safeguarding vulnerable people. Each of these is then presented in more detail over the following pages. These include: risk assessment, raising an alert, referral and strategy meetings, investigation, case conference and protection plan and reviewing the protection plan.

Recognising different types of cruelty
In this section, ways of identifying each of the most commonly experienced forms of cruelty and harassment of people with learning disabilities are presented.These include physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse.

Recording and sharing information
This section details the appropriate procedure for recording, storing and sharing information, as well as what to include when making an initial record of an incident. Research suggests that anxiety about how personal details are stored and shared is one factor in the low reporting rates of cruelty towards people with learning disabilities. It is particularly important, therefore, that organisations are seen to adhere to a strict and clear policy on this point.
  Anybody who is concerned about learning disability hate crime can call the Stop Learning Disability Hate Crime helpline on 0808 802 1155. All incidents disclosed to the helpline are reported to the police, although callers can choose not to include their personal details. The helpline is open 24 hours a day every day of the year, and is free. For more information visit the website or email James Gibbs at Stop Hate UK.

Action Against Cruelty is based on our 2012 report Loneliness and Cruelty: people with learning disabilities and their experience of harassment, abuse and related crime in the community.

 

 Your feedback
If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions for Action Against Cruelty, feel free to contact us by replying to this email or emailing Sarah.
  Your work
If you are involved in or aware of innovative work tackling targeted cruelty towards people with learning disabilities, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by replying to this email, or emailing Sarah.