It’s been a busy but exciting few weeks for us preparing for the My Life My Decision roll-out. As well as progressing the grant paperwork, Becky and Danielle are currently on a ‘My Life My Decision Tour’ visiting our six new delivery partners across England – Becky will be posting more about that next week. Verena has been progressing our Training Modules accreditation, and we have also been discussing and developing our plans for how we support and develop our delivery partner project co-ordinators.The Project Co-ordinators will play a crucial role in terms of the co-ordination and implementation of My Life, My Decision in each of the 7 areas. Their role includes recruiting and supporting at least 3 volunteer Champions, running end of life rights training & awareness talks, promoting the Flagship in the local communities, liaising with Compassion in Dying and overseeing the face to face support for older people wishing to discuss end of life rights and choices. Our training leads will be helping them gain a thorough understanding of Advance Decisions and Health and Personal Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, and as well as supporting them to communicate this knowledge to relevant stakeholders. And in return we know we will learn lots from them in terms of community engagement and meeting the individual needs of older people.But it is not just the roll out we are working on this month. Our Information Line – 0800 999 2434 – has been taking lots of calls, and Compassion in Dying has been undertaking Carers research, reviewing the recent House of Lords report on the Mental Capacity Act, developing new materials and welcoming Eloise to the team. Vicky and her volunteers have been providing face to face support to older people in East London, and Verena is also still delivering training and information sessions across East London.Tomorrow Verena will be undertaking our first form filling training for our partners Subco. We are really excited about this as it will enable their staff to have a more detailed understanding of Advance Decisions and Health and Personal Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney in order for them to support the Asian elders they work with in the community. Many of the people who use their services are frail, isolated and housebound. Subco works towards the empowerment of these individuals, assisting them in accessing services they are entitled to whilst campaigning for services they need that are culturally, religiously and linguistically appropriate. We hope that by working together in this way, we will be able to reach out to even more people across east London and use learning from this to inform our services across England.Finally a quick update on a forthcoming event in East London. Our celebration event Verena is organising on 8th April will be a great chance for us to step back and reflect on the work that has been achieved so far. We are really looking forward to being able to thank those people who have been particularly supportive of the project, and to talk a bit more about how we will be taking things forward….and to having some tasty tea and cakes! Let Verena know if you would like to join us.
