Strengthening DPULOs Programme monthly update, no.2 (March 2012)

For some reason I forgot to post the second monthly update about the Strengthening DPULOs Programme. We are thus publishing it now, just ahead of the third monthly update from the programme! Do please note this means some of the dates mentioned below are no longer relevant. Better late than never…

This is the second monthly update about the Strengthening DPULOs Programme. You can read the first monthly update, from February 2012, here.

Disability hate crime

Over the last month, the Programme has done a lot of work on the topic of disability hate crime. We have begun work on our collection of case studies called: “DPULOs Making A Difference: disability hate crime”. This work is being coordinated by Access Dorset. We are encouraging DPULOs to put themselves forward as a potential case study. If you haven’t already, the details of how to do so are here.

The role of DPULOs in addressing disability hate crime has been fundamentally recognised and included in the Home Office’s recent Hate Crime Action Plan, called “Challenge it, report it, stop it”. You can read this here. (Mentions of DPULOs are in Section 2 (actions 3, 5), Section 3 (actions 5, 7, 13) and Section 4 (action 11).)

DPULOs Making A Difference: Working with commissioners

Today we have published an Expression of Interest for the second in our “DPULOs Making A Difference” series, for which we have grant funding available. This work is about DPULOs and commissioners of public services working together. To read more about this work, and to find out how to submit an Expression of Interest to coordinate this work, please visit here. Please submit your Expression of Interest to Richard.Watts1@dwp.gsi.gov.uk by 5pm on Wednesday 25 April 2012.

Facilitation Fund

On 19 and 20 March, the Strengthening DPULOs Programme Ambassadors met and considered a large number of applications to the Facilitation Fund. So far, 39 applications have been successful in their applications to the Facilitation Fund. This includes pan-impairment organisations and organisations working across all impairment groups (including people with learning disabilities and mental health conditions). The total amount of awards made to date is just under £500,000.

Useful resources

One key part of the Strengthening DPULOs Programme is to share learning and useful resources. Some useful links to recent information we’ve published are below.

• This Digital Engagement Guide is essential for any DPULO aiming to start or improve their digital engagement with disabled people (through things like Twitter and Facebook): http://www.digitalengagement.info/
• The Social Care Institute for Excellent has published a report on the future of personalisation and independent living, which includes many references to the role of DPULOs in achieving this: http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/reports/report55/index.asp
• This is a useful list of potential funding streams that DPULOs can access: http://www.indi.org.uk/funding.html
• We’ve written a detailed post about DPULOs and commissioning: https://arbitraryc.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/enabling-dpulo-contributions-through-commissioning/

If you have any learning or resources you’d like to share, please let us know (contact details are at the bottom of this update).

Find out more about the Programme

To find out more about the Strengthening DPULOs Programme, you can visit our website.

You can also keep in touch with the programme through our regularly updated Facebook page. This includes information that may be useful to DPULOs, as well as information about the programme too. If you are on Facebook, you can find us here.

If you are on Twitter, you can share information and find out more about DPULOs using the hashtag #dpulo. Every Tuesday night, between 8-9pm, we have a dedicated Twitter discussion – feel free to join us! As always, we’d be grateful if you can spread the word and publicise this news throughout your networks / newsletters / websites etc.

We’d also be grateful for any feedback you have on this regular update.

Contact us

For information, biographies, contact details and details of the areas covered by each of the 12 DPULO Ambassadors covers, please visit the Ambassadors page.

If you have any questions about the Facilitation Fund or any part Strengthening DPULOs Programme, please contact odi.businessperformance@dwp.gsi.gov.uk.

Please feel free to forward this information on to any DPULOs, networks or stakeholders you think might find it interesting. If you didn’t receive the original email, please share your contact details with us so you can receive our monthly emails.

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