
See Me I want to Live Equally. Through the SMILE Project the Speak Out Group offer training presentations where they tell people what they think is best for people with learning disabilities. To do this the group use Forum Theatre and audience participation where they invite the audience to work with them and participate in tasks such as a Quiz and they act out Scenarios where they ask the audience what is wrong in the scenario and what could be done to make it better.

The Speak Out Group has three training/presentation packages that they are now able to offer;
Health Focus – all about accessing health services.
A Stitch in Time – all about receiving a health service.
A Trio of Scenarios – all about communication with people with learning disabilities.
The SMILE Project presentations/training has received being done to great acclaim and the Speak Out Group have received extremely positive feedback/evaluations for their SMILE Project work;
What our Services Users say…
“Many people art the end of the conference and those who have been in touch with me today made a special mention of the SMILE Project presentation and how special it was. I think that the SMILE Group did a brilliant job in getting their message to the audience and entertained everyone with your quiz and your jokes. Thank you for all the laughs. You put a big smile on everyone’s face and left a smile on everyone’s mind too – they will remember you and the message you gave them. Many, many thanks to all of you for making our conference that much more special. You did a great job!”
“Just wanted to thank you for inviting the student nurses to this event, those that attended were raving about it this morning. They really enjoyed it and stated that there was a need for this type of thing to be added in to their course as they don’t really get very much about learning disabilities.”
“The group have put across a very powerful message.”
“I thought the SMILE Project training was one of the best training events I have attended. It was very well organised, good interaction with the audience and superb effort from the group members. Two hours flew by!”
“I love it. It’s good to know their perspective on things and the fact they are acting it out is very good. It’s opened my eyes a wee bit more as to how they are seeing things in hospital.”
“When we do our SMILE work I don’t feel like I have a learning disability, people don’t see our disability, they see you – it makes me feel the same as everyone else.”
“I didn’t feel positive about my care before, but with you here I feel positive about it now.”
“I felt great knowing that you were there beside me; really comfortable. Maybe in the past when I have had to do an assessment, I felt quite tense, but it felt good to have you there.”
“We didn’t know that we could use our SDS to purchase equipment during Covid-19, but with Advocacy’s support we were able to approach our local authority to request a more flexible spend.”
“I really appreciate everything you have done for me. Thank you for everything you have done to help.”
