January 08 Meeting

MSP Replies. Of the 9 people who had sent out letters 5 had already received replies. Mary had invited her MSP- Paul Martin to attend the meeting today. Of the letters received most said they thought that the information pack was a good idea and that they would ask the health minister to look into this.

Open Discussion. When Paul arrived he gave us some feedback about what we are doing and said that writing letters and then perhaps following up with a petition was a good way to go about trying to achieve our aims. He told us a bit about the way things would work- ie what might be the result of writing our letters. Paul said that in writing the petition it would be good to be specific and to make recommendations for the the way that things could be done.

Paul also said that he would be willing to help us with the petition by supporting it when it is being discussed and by trying to make sure that people were there to speak to the petition when it is being discussed. Paul also liked the idea of having an event during brain injury awareness week (30^th-6^th April) and would try to help us organise a room in Parliament to hold an event.

Susan brought up about the categories of Learning Difficulty, Physical Disability and Mental Health and the problem of people with brain injury not fitting into these- but lots of money is spent on these categories.

The point was raised that there may already be a lot of money spent on services for people with brain injury but if people don’t get the information about them then this causes problems with people not getting useful services at the right time.

Paul considered that providing the information on the internet would be one way of spreading the information in a relatively low cost way. Someone asked whether it would be expensive to have something printed up that would be distributed to everyone with a brain injury.

Members of the group shared their experiences of finding out about services that they could use. The point was raised that some people had to travel quite far to be able to get any services (because they have none in their local area). There was also the positive point made that there has been an increase in they type and number of services since some people had their injuries.

We agreed that we would want to hold an event if possible and that we would contact Paul at Parliament to see if it was possible to get a room within parliament to do something.

Group name:

There were a number of suggestions put up for group name and these were considered and voted on by the group.

These were:

Service User Forum for Acquired Brain Injury (SUFFABI)

Brain Injury Forum for Awareness (BIFFA)

Group for Awareness of Brain Injury (GABI)

Campaign for Awareness of Brain Injury (CABI)

Brain Injury Awareness Campaign (BrainIAC)

Nerve Centre.

In order the votes were:

BrainIAC – 7 votes

Group for Awareness of Brain Injury (GABI) – 2 votes

Brain Injury Forum for Awareness (BIFA)- 2 votes

Others: no votes

So the group will be called the Brain Injury Awareness Campaign or BrainIAC for short. A couple of people raised concerns about a TV programme called the same thing, but the group decided to go with what they had chosen.

Chairperson for the Group

At the petitions sub group we identified that we would need to have a chairperson for the group- even if this is someone in the interim period. At present the group does not have a constitution so it was agreed that we would chose a chairperson by majority. Helen Moran was nominated and the group agreed that she should be the chairperson.

Content of the Petition

James had to leave early but as he was going to be helping the group to work out their ideas on the petition he sent round a sheet for people to write their own ideas on for the petition. This sheet will follow the main part of the notes for the group.

Completing the petition

Simon had checked with the parliament information service that it was possible to have both a written and an online version of a petition. This means that there is the possibility of gathering signatures from people who were not using a computer- for example people who attend groups.

Promoting the petition

When it comes to launching the petition it will be good to have some personal stories that go along with this . The focus of the stories would relate to the petition. Roberta made the point that the people who speak should have a range of different causes of brain injury so that people know that it can be caused by more than just Head Injuries.

It would want to make the point that it affects people from different walks of life and in different circumstances.

Petitions Sub Group. This group looking specifically at the petition will meet on Friday 22^nd February at 1pm at Headway’s office.

Next Meeting:

One agenda Item will be carried over to the next meeting- that of funding for the group. As the group is separate from Headway and Momentum and other current brain injury groups it will need to get it’s own funding to help pay for things like room rental or admin etc.

Next Meeting Date: 29^th February at 1pm at Renfield St Stephen’s Church 260 Bath Street.