BME Community Development Worker - Learning Disability

Hi everyone. My name is Nasreen Zaman. I have recently joined GVOC as a Part time Black and Minority Ethnic Community Development Worker for Learning Disability based at John Haswell House. I have previous experience as a Community Development Worker, however working with BME Learning Disability is a new challenge for me and I look forward to working in this area and achieving the goals of the project.

This is a one year funded post and my role is to consult with people who use learning disability services, to talk about their experiences of accessing and using the services, to raise awareness among parents with children who have learning disabilities and BME Community groups about the availability of the services provided by both the statutory and voluntary sector. I will also be working closely with the SADA Group (Service Access for Disability Action) to enable me to target my work.

Another part of my role is to identify ways in which services may need to improve and change to ensure that they are culturally appropriate for BME Communities. I hope this will then create a better understanding between stakeholders and those needing to use their services as well as improving services for BME Communities.