Consultancy

We provide a bespoke consultancy service to help you improve your services and obtain specialised provision for people with learning disability or autism and their family carers.

We provide consultancy services with a tailored proposal, timeline and budget for the following purposes:

  • Independent advocacy for people with learning disability and their family carers. This can cover the Care Act, Mental Capacity Act – including deprivation of liberty safeguards, Child Protection, Discrimination and non-statutory advocacy such as accompanying clients to social care meetings – making sure they understand the process and their views are taken into consideration in every step of the process.
  • Casework support around social care and welfare benefits
  • Information and advice sessions on specific areas of legislation or support
  • Independent reviews and evaluations of your service, project or cases

Contact Beatriz on beatriz@centre404.org.uk or call 020 7607 8762 to discuss your needs and requirements.

 

Training

Our team of experts deliver training sessions to individuals and organisations. We tailor our training to meet the needs of organisations and their service users.

Please get in touch with us to discuss your training needs. Contact the Supporting Families Team on family@centre404.org.uk or call 020 7607 8762.

From our training sessions you can expect:

  • Face-to-face and personalised training delivered by experienced staff. Our staff are supported by family carers from our Peer Volunteer project. The training sessions include a section with real stories from the family carer’s perspective.
  • Sessions delivered at a time and place that suit your needs. We can arrange training at our premises in Islington, or we can come to your organisation and venues all across London. Online sessions are also available.
  • Training with relevant, interactive and up-to-date content
  • Support from our experienced staff before and after the session.

Our training courses:

You can sign up for our current training offer or ask us to design a session based on your needs and requirements.

Our sessions are tailored for both, parents/family carers and professionals.

  • Understanding a diagnosis of learning disability or autism and support available
  • Learning disability / autism awareness – identifying signs and practical help
  • Welfare / Disability benefits (DLA, PIP, ESA, UC) – requirements, how to best fill out the forms and supporting appeals
  • Legislation: Care Act 2014, Coronavirus Act 2020 & Children and Family Act 2014
  • Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – sections and duties
  • Personal Budgets –  what they are, how to use them and support available
  • Transition to adulthood – statutory duties and service provision
  • Sex education, puberty and safeguarding of people with learning disability or autism
  • Learning disability vs learning difficulties – differences and implications of the diagnosis in the support provision
  • Health and wellbeing strategies for parents and family carers of people with learning disabilities or autism
  • Sleep difficulties of people with learning disability or autism – signs and strategies
  • How to run a successful workshop or training session

Prices starting from £30 for professionals:  

Please get in touch for a quote: 020 7607 8762     family@centre404.org.uk

Click here to download a flier of the service

Meet the Team

Emily Brooks

Emily started working at Centre 404 in March 2020. Within her role, she supports speak-up groups and Forums such as the Islington Parents Forum and Islington Family Carers Reference Group. She arranges and facilitates support groups and workshops for parents and unpaid family carers.

Emily worked within the Children with Disability Social Care team within a Local Authority for 5 years, assessing and reviewing social care packages and implementing Child in Need plans.

Emily also had the opportunity to travel to America for 4 months to work at a Summer camp for children with disabilities arranging daily activities to create enjoyable and memorable experiences.

Emily has a long history of working with children through arranging children’ parties to becoming a qualified swimming instructor as well as supporting the Disability friendly swim sessions.

 

Monika Wojtun-Sieminska

Monika started working at Centre 404 in June 2008 as a Transition Carers Officer, working with family carers of young people with special needs aged 16-25. She offered one to one support and advice around transition, attended annual review meetings at schools and undertaking social care assessments.

Later on, Monika supported parents with welfare benefits forms, grants applications and running a drop in at Centre 404 and at the Bridge Special Needs School.

After this, Monika was offered a post in the Islington SEND IASS service run by Centre 404, providing independent information and advice to parent carers around education.

In 2016 Monika started working as a caseworker at Camden Carers Centre and her area of expertise was Learning Disabilities. She did Carers Assessments for Camden carers and her focus was on health and social care issues, well-being, maximising carers income and providing general advise around education and housing. She also run the advice line at Camden Cares once a week.

Monika has also been involved in the running and organising of activities and events and managed Centre 404’s Peer to Peer project for a year.

In 2018 Monika became the Casework and Quality Manager. Her responsibilities are to oversee casework and offer support to caseworkers as well as focusing on wellbeing projects. Monika also oversees the Advice and Quality Standard Mark at Centre 404 ensuring that the service provided is of high quality and within required standards.

 

Eva Williams

Eva has worked for Centre 404 since 2017. Her area of expertise is research and analysis of complex welfare benefits case law and rights, supporting parents with information and advice and delivering training and information sessions to family carers and professionals.

Eva previously worked at KeyRing Support Networks in the capacity of Support Worker across the borough of Islington. She supported service users living independently in the community.

Eva has also worked in the heritage and library sector .