By Helen Jones, Adult Protection Team, Stoke-on-Trent City Council

On Wednesday 13th February 2019 The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Adult Safeguarding Partnership Board (SSASPB) were delighted to welcome Sharon Sharman from VOICES and Lee from Expert Citizens to Staffordshire Police Headquarters to speak to an audience of 48 people who come into contact with adults who need safeguarding from abuse and neglect.

This was the 2nd of 7 planned events to be held across the County of Staffordshire which aim to help professionals better understand how and why people self-neglect; and how they can improve their engagement with them. This series of events was arranged in response to a multi-agency review into the care and support provided to a 49 yr old Stoke-on-Trent man whose self-neglect contributed to his death. Whilst there was no blame attributed to the care provided we wanted to better understand what self-neglect is and the challenges presented to those who provide care and support to those who self-neglect.

Engagement is an essential element to supporting adults with care and support needs and Lee helped us to understand how that could be greatly improved through empathy and better knowledge about the reasons why people neglect themselves. Whilst Lee’s experiences were different to those of the man who died there were some similarities. He very ably and passionately talked about some of his experiences; taking questions from an audience made up of social workers, nurses, health/care providers and Police. The comments received after the presentation were extremely positive, many appreciating the ability to learn from someone with lived experience. We are very grateful for the support given to us by Sharon and Lee and have had to put on extra events to meet demand following the success of the first two, we very much look forward to working together again soon.

For more information about the work of the SSASPB and adult safeguarding in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire please visit www.SSASPB.org.uk