During consultation, people with learning disabilities and their families told us they would like to understand better how their bodies work, changes such as puberty and the menopause, know how to check for and understand changes, opportunities to discuss relationships, sexuality and sexual health and have more support around bereavement and loss.The role of the Community Support Workers and Learning Disability Nurses contributes in supporting people with health care appointments in primary care, acute care, podiatry, chiropody, dentist etc. plus health promotion activities and outpatient appointments.
While we have increased uptake of breast screening, bowel and cervical screening rates remain low. We therefore wanted to look at how we could offer extended personalised support by working together.
People with learning disabilities and their carers, Northumberland County Council and the Community Business Unit at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust developed an innovative approach to supporting people with learning disabilities which is being offered through the Josephine & Jack programmes.
‘Josephine’ and ‘Jack’ are anatomically correct innovative interactive learning resources used to explore a range of health, wellbeing, relationship and sexual health issues in a confidential and supportive environment. They were commissioned from Them Wifies, under a social licensing agreement and designed to meet the specifications that resulted from consultation with a range of people with learning disabilities across Northumberland.
Both Josephine and Jack are life-size have all the same body parts as a real person plus some additional features as learning aids. Josephine for example has removable breasts one with a lump and one without to support breast checking. Similarly Jack has interchangeable genitals with a lump in one testicle and the option of a circumcised or retractable foreskin penis. Other features include removable pubic hair, some internal organs and spaces inside their heads where thoughts can be put and explored. They also have accompanying resources including a diary, uterus with baby, sperm, and emotion faces which can be used to support specific sessions.
For example we use the diary to explore permission to read it and discuss scenarios created in it about feelings, events and potential actions.
We established a referral system overseen by senior practitioners who allocate facilitators accordingly to provide small group workshops or individual support. We can correlate the number, ages and types of referral by locality including those in safeguarding who are then referred on to the Josephine & Jack project.
Feedback from workshop participants has been very positive and has shaped the prioritisation of developing bereavement support in 2014. As work with Northumbria Police progresses we will be able to record the number and types of cases where evidence was gathered using Josephine & Jack and any resulting prosecutions and convictions.
We are also looking at ways in which we can measure the social return for example in terms of uptake of screening, reduction in the number of sexual transmitted infections, reduction in the number of people taking part in sexual activity without their consent.
Kindly shared by Ann Brown @Northumbria. 2014 Patient Experience Network Finalist for partnership working with social care.