ACCESS ALL AREAS NOW! are now supported by Employment Pathways, even though Mencap started off supporting is. We are now Sole Traders instead of a Social Enter Prize. We are employed by Wolverhampton City Council. We hope to create the Travel Buddy service along with other services. we hope to train people who work in services around learning disability awareness before we have services of our own. ACCESS ALL AREAS NOW! Sunday 11th April 2010 up date We are sorry that the business is a year late, it's slowly than we thought it was going to be. We should be having a new business plan, as soon as we do I will up date report as soon as I find out the new change of the business plan.
Andy Howard was with us for a while until he had a few home problems, he even found himself leaving our for about 3 to 6 mouth so he missed out on half of the training myself and Jess went through.He now need to catch up, he's now Self - Employed yet but he will slowly will be.
David Oakley was going to join us as Business partners but he had too many commitments at home.
There must be some people who haven't experienced traveling alone on the West Midlands Travel buses at all, they may have had no choice but to be picked from their own homes and back again. Parents, families and carers may worry about them traveling alone, we will be happy to support them to see that they will be learning independent travel training as well as hopefully putting mini buses on for safety. We will worry more about them traveling at night on the West Midlands Travel but if their choice is to do that, we will have to go a long with it. If we tell them to contact us and their families , carers and etc to see that they are safe. We will support people who are less independent. We Understand that Anti - social behavior is bad enough on it's own but if you don't know where you are going and you can't remember directions, it's even worse. We will do anything and everything we can to support their safety. We understand Anti - social behavior gives anyone grief but if someone can't take no for answer, some people with disabilities may be not be able to cope with it the same as main stream people. Having said that people with disabilities should have the same rights to life as non - disabled people, otherwise we feel useless. We are doing a training at the library this mouth, which will be on one of the reports on this website, we are hoping to do Health training session for Mencap's learning disability week in June and hopefully to doing a training session for people who work in Travel services due to not having a bus station for roughly two years.
We should also be encouraged them to make friendships, relationships through college, work, social events and etc. Give us rights to have what we want with right support! With your support we would like to support others like us to have most rights we have and you have. There are things that we haven't got in life because of the lack of past support. The things we have achieved have been just luck, which hasn't been easy because there was even less support when we were at school and when we left then there is now. We have either learned those things in our time or the very limited support what there there was just about out there. Like everyone we still have a lot to learn, some things it's too late for because the support wasn't out there when we were young enough to learn these things. It isn't all black and white because there are things it's never too late for. With the things we have learned, we would like to teach people with disabilities with better support than what we had. It would be lovely to see these people to be where we are today but going through less hard work than what we went though. Let us do the hard work, we're with you all the way guys!
In case anything happens to a person or people with learning disabilities you are caring for or may be a person with a disability yourself. West Midlands Police WPC Jan Johnson Vulnerable person's officer Wolverhampton , Crime Stoppers and Jan's EXT: IS 7871 6818. If you don't live in Wolverhampton you may be you will able to look for the same support else where. If you email me or and get in touch with Mencap we possibly may be able to help you find a contact in case anything happens to people with a disabilities. If you look at the Mencap website, may be you can find a report called DISABILITY HATE CRIME or type DISABILITY HATE CRIME in the search engine. Nine times out of ten if a crime is going happen, it happens when no one is around. When that happens to a lot of people can get disbelieved but even more so when things happen to people with disabilities . Please if you see anyone with a disability who is very upset over a crime, please support them if they ask you to, thank you or even help anyone who feels they need it. It's too much of a dangerous world but we all have to live our lives.
There wasn't a Travel Buddy Business schemes serves, when we were learning to travel independently. We had to learn the hard way with hardy any support at all but we got there in the end somehow. When I was learning to travel on buses, I was on my last school Penn fields Wolverhampton. I was living with my Nan. The school just sent me to travel out on the bus on a scheme helping out in an Old people's home. I never got there because I spent all day trying to find the place on my own, this happen every time the Deputy Headmaster sent me out there. My Gran was worried sick because there were most nights I didn't in until 7pm. From 9am I spent all day looking for where I was going but never got there. The staff from the Old people's home rang him up to say I didn't turn up. I told him I tried, he didn't believe me and he was very angry with me, so I was completely misunderstood. Lucky enough in those day Anti - Behaviour and Crime was very rare but today it's risky wondering around waisting time, even back then anything could have happened to me. I needed a Travel buddy but me, Jess and Andy will now see other people like I used to be will get their Travel buddies.
If you are really worried, we are hoping to provide either social workers, Key workers or even support workers to support their safety but also give them lead way to do their own thing. Some support may not be there to start off right way but hopefully it will one day. Not surprisingly so a lot of things come down to funding. We could have to do a lot of Fund racing, the government isn't always kind to us. We will keep trying until we get there, like we have had to with our own lives, to give them the best support people as possible, which no one knew about when we were learning. Everyone is learning everyday.
I used to get Ring and Ride when I was seeing my ex boyfriend almost every night of the week, even it got me home safe. it was a pain booking two days before hand. It took forever for them to find out whether they could get you a journey or not, it costs people a lot of money on their phones while they are waiting for their lifts to be booked.People with disabilities need a more accessible way of traveling. Ring and Ring doesn't work very well for a appointments or any events that start and finish certain times.
UP - DATING OF THE TRAVEL BUDDY REPORT. Sunday 11th April 2010. Last Sunday the bus station was closed for a new bus station to be done one, which will take about 18 mouths to 2 yrs. The only replacement of the bus station is Queen Street in Wolverhampton big it's not big enough to access all buses. May buses people have to catch on and off in the street. This is a bog change all people not just people with disabilities. Many people with with disabilities travel rather well on the buses but some don't. We all have different disabilities, we all learn at different speed. If you have always be guided by people it takes a lot to get ready for the big wide world alone. It's not just getting a bus but finding your way around.
There are plenty of school children and school leavers with disabilities that need to learn about the big wide world just like I did just over 20+ yrs ago. It's going be a long 2yrs until the bus station is done. In the mean time, as mostly people are getting out and off in the city and the streets, it needs to be more accessible for people who find more hard to get around. The next change will be in 2yrs time when the bus station is ready, I hope will be able to talk to someone from the Travel services about the changes to the bus station so it's as accessible as possible for people with disabilities to get about.
Now me and Jess have that we have set up Access All Area Now! we can get in touch with some Travel people to have some meetings with them to plan a training session. The Travel buddy service is one of the services we hope to have in the future but we are still finding our feet at the moment, it's still all very new to us. The aim is to support as many areas in the lives of people with learning disabilities as possible. This is why we are called ' ACCESS ALL AREAS NOW! We want to train other services about disabilities first. We are not building our hopes but we will never say never. We can only see how successful we can be. We are hoping to meet up with people from Travel services in the West Midlands to find out how accessible the new bus station is going to be.
If you have any views or and stories to share on the subject of transport, travel training and learning disability. I'd be very happy to read your email whether you are a person with a disability, family member, friend or and carer.sarajgorman@gmail or Facebook sarajgorman@gmail.com
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