Speak Out For Change Experience Survey

If you are affected by Acquired Brain Injury and living in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Neurological Conditions Network wants to hear about your experiences and the impact the condition has on you.

Are you a young person or an adult who is:

• living with a neurological condition;
• caring for someone with a neurological condition;
• in a family where someone has a neurological condition?

If so the Neurological Conditions Network is listening. Here's your chance to have your say-please take it.

The results gathered from this survey will help inform them of their priorities over the next year and will be shared with the people who plan, commission, and deliver services so that they can work to ensure that existing services in Northern Ireland meet your needs.

You can complete it online at the following address: www.speakoutforchange.net

For a paper copy and stamped addressed envelope please contact Julie Mawhinney, Tel: 02890 321313, email neurological.condtions@hscni.net

Or to download a paper copy here: Speak Out for Change Experience Survey- Paper Copy.pdf

Staff from the Neurological Conditions Network will be at the following locations to support you to complete the survey.


Ballymena Library - 28 March
Omagh Library - 31 March
Armagh Library - 5 April
Belfast Library - 6 April

Please do come along and take the opportunity to share your experiences.

No Win, No Fee - It's not all about ambulance chasing!

The justice secretary Ken Clarke Radio 4 Today Programme  ahead of a statement to MPs – to explain why he's going to curtail "no win, no fee" legal activity that encourages ambulance-chasing, dodgy claims and excessive fees for lawyers.

He is also taking a £350m axe to Legal Aid, notably the modest civil aid variety, a move that is causing grave distress to those who seek to promote access to justice for society's poorest.

So when no win, no fee was substituted, lawyers were instead allowed to double the fees claimed against the respondent when they won – a sharp incentive to do such work, knowing that a win would help pay for other cases lost.

What shouldn't be lost though between the wranglings of the government and  the lawyers is the need for very specialised legal expertise for complex and often long term childhood acquired brain injury cases.

Families affected by this (often the poorer and less educated amongst us) have been dealt a double blow.  Not only do they have to cope with the affects of the brain injury which include many hidden aspects (in other words, you don't see it physically), but they also now have to deal with the very real situation of  cuts in service provision and the distinct possibility that they will have limited or no access to compensation, because lawyers will not take on their lengthy and complex cases.

Legal firms who support the work of the Child Brain Injury Trust, do so because they recognise the importance of the 'relationship' and the long term benefit it will bring to the family.  We hope that these firms will continue to value the overall support these families need to enable them to move forward positively with their lives.

No Win, No Fee - it's not all about 'Ambulance Chasers'.

Using the law to challenge cuts

Barrister Steve Broach sets out options for campaigners considering legal challenge.

Steve Broach, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, has today published a paper for campaigners – including parents and carers – who are considering challenging local service decisions using the law.

This paper, Using the Law to Fight the Cuts to Disabled Children’s Services, has been written in response to the deep concern that campaigners have expressed that many decisions are currently being taken to cut services for disabled children and families without proper consideration of what the law requires. It is designed to ensure that campaigners have the legal tools to ensure that even in a time of intense pressure on public finances the legal rights of disabled children and their families are respected.

Steve said 'When substantial cuts to services are proposed or announced families with disabled children often feel powerless to respond. However there are clear legal duties which must be complied with by public bodies which wish to cut services - and if these duties are ignored decisions may be overturned by the courts. I hope this paper helps give parent campaigners and others who are trying to defend disabled children's services some of the information they need to challenge these decisions.'

This paper will be followed in the Spring by a guide to the law for parents and carers which provides more detailed practical legal information to support conversations with local decision makers.

Big Lottery Fund News

Five years ago, Theresa McKee got the knock on the door that every parent dreads. Her 5 year old son Jamie had been knocked down by a car and was left with multiple injuries including a serious head injury. Find out how the Child Brain Injury Trust made a difference to Theresa and her family thanks to the Big Lottery Fund in Northern Ireland.