SAVE WELLINGTON HOUSE!
Our branch was at today's protest outside Hove Town Hall, representing our members who are skilled and experienced support workers and advocates for many of the city's most vulnerable adults with learning disabilities. We stood with parents and carers today who talked of their devastation at the possibility of the centre closing. This isn't just about uprooting their children and loved ones from a service they have known for years - it's about tearing apart a community, that they and their families rely on.
Wellington House is THE LAST council run day centre for adults with learning disabilities. It has the capacity, the skilled workforce and the space to become a centre of excellence for our learning disabled community.
The council must:
focus on the growth of the service and the development of it and the building's potential to raise revenue.
stop the sell off of our city's assets and focus on prevention through the insourcing of excellent service provision.
make a decision in September based on the feedback and ideas of service users families, LD organisations and campaign groups, our trade union and our members and consider alternative proposals to closure.
make a decision based on human rights not money. Service users are not a 'unit cost' they are people!
If just two home-care relationships break down due to the pressures of changed provision, the projected savings from the closure could be written off through high-cost residential provision in just 2 years. And if more than two broke down through the lack of proper provision in the city it would go even quicker and potentially lead to being a cost rather than a saving.
READ POWERFUL TESTIMONIALS FROM OUR MEMBERS AT WELLINGTON HOUSE HERE.
