From everyone at The Q-Team!!!

The Q-Team had a great time at the Southdown Christmas carol concert yesterday. Some brilliant open mic sessions and really creative seasonal fancy dress. The Q-Team also had a chance to talk to lots of people about the important work they are doing and spread the word that people with learning disabilities can and should be able to comment on their support and the service they receive.

The Q-Team are looking forward to the Southdown Christmas carol concert later today. They will be showing their information video and talking a bit about what they do while enjoying a mince pie and a cup of tea. Steve will also be doing some magic and I dare say that Andrew will attack the open mic session with vigour. See the attached link if you have not seen our information video.

This is Andrew, he is one of the founding members of The Q-Team. We had just finished filming him for a Q-Team video report and he was in the process of editing the video.
After the Q-Team have visited a service and interacted with the people that live there, we write a full report for the support staff to express to them what was shared with us during the visit.
It is important to us that the people that we represent are informed of what we have said to staff on their behalf and we think that it is important for staff to know that we have also shared this information with the people that they support. So we send an easy read version of the report, that we developed with Brighton University students, to residents accompanied by a video version of the report for people that prefer to see and hear what the team said. This really helps us when we talk to people at a later date to see what changes have happened.
All of the team will be involved in starring in, filming, directing and editing the video reports. please click on this link to see an example report.

Some slightly rowdy Christmas messages from members of The Q-Team both new starters and long standing members

If you haven't already, have a look at The Q-Team's information video. The Q-Team realised that services we visited often had problems visualising how a visit might look. Well we couldn't have that, so the team put their heads together and came up with the idea to make an information video to be sent to services prior to our visits. It is also a great way to explain to others some of the ways we help people to communicate how they feel. The Team worked really hard on his and it would be great if you could give it a "like" on Youtube so they can know what a great job they are doing.

Party Time!!! It was The Q-Team Christmas party today bringing together our new recruits and the more experienced members of the team. It was really great to have everyone in together and the guys went straight into a debate about communication skills and the way that people prefer to communicate. Really insightful and really interesting. Can't wait until we are all working together in the New Year. Happy Christmas everyone!!

Another great training day for our newest Q-Team members. In these images Daniel is presenting some ideas on behalf of his team and later agreeing to try a Kumquat on behalf of the team so that he can explain what it tastes like. It was a really fun and vibrant session. We and the new members can't wait for them to start joining us on visits!

Here is a photo of Stephen and Andrew at the 3VA conference yesterday. The 3VA was our last conference for 2013 and followed the team appearing at the British Institute of Learning Disabilities in October, the "It's not on" hate crime conference and the Learning Disability Today conference in November. The team are now very comfortable sharing what it is that we do. In the picture we have an example of one of our video reports; an easy read written report developed with the University of Brighton; and a touch screen version of The Q-Kit that we have developed over the year. We also asked people to choose a drink and asked them what had influenced how they made their choice. We believe that people should be able to make the choices that they want and that the quality of a service should be measured by the people that receive the service and not simply measured against a set of standards.

The Q-Team completed their 29th visit to a learning disability service yesterday. The team are looking forward to the 30th. The Q-Team have now represented close to 250 people with learning disabilities living in supported living or registered care services across East & West Sussex. The Q-Kit model of quality checking continues to help people across the country have their say about their support service.
Today the Q-Team are at the 3VA conference in Lewes where we have met some wonderful people in the volunteer sector who are also working on worthwhile causes.