Introducing our representative volunteers

We believe that we are “Better Together”.

Because of this, we got together with the people we support who helped us to come up with the idea to have at least one local representative in each area that we work in.

The representatives, or “reps” are volunteers who are supported by mirus, and will be the voice of people supported by mirus in their area. Their role is to provide feedback and opinions from other people we support to the local Area Manager and Registered Individual. They will also provide feedback and opinion to external organisations that mirus work with. Their goal is to make things better for people supported by mirus, and help to make sure that people can do the things they love.

The skills our representatives have

Together we created a list of skills that each rep should have. These skills are:

• To be able to communicate, with additional support where necessary
• To listen and understand what someone is saying
• To understand that people communicate differently
• To have strong opinions and be happy to share the with others
• To be ready to offer suggestions for soling problems
• To be prepared to take part in training to improve skills

Each rep needs great support from someone who understands what their role is – and each rep and their support received training to learn new skills to be even better.

Our reps

Our first meeting

The first time all the reps and supporters came together was back in March where we had a meeting in Court Colman.

Together we looked at the role of the reps and everyone discussed what why they thought this was so important.

We spoke about the fact that mirus has policies. A policy is a set of rules about how we do things in mirus. We want the reps to have a say about what goes into the policies that are about the people we support and their rights.

We watched a short film and talked about what self advocacy is, asking the questions…

How does it feel when you speak up for yourself and tell people what is important for you?
How does it feel to be listened to?
How does it feel when you are not listened to?

Speaking out training

Together we decided that it would be useful for the group to have some training about speaking out.

So the next time the group met together was to have training on this subject. This training was delivered by Tracey and Louise from All Wales People First.

The supporters also received training, this time from Joe Powell the Chief Executive of All Wales People First. This training was all about how they can best support the reps and was called “Shine without Shining”

Every month the reps get together on a Teams meeting to choose the “mirus moment” winners. In June this meeting will be in person as they are going to choose the nominees going forward for the mirus star awards later in the summer.

What’s happening next

The reps are now spending time getting used to their roles. Each month they select our ‘mirus moments’ winners based on the nominations that we receive.

On June 7th, the reps will be getting together again to form part of the mirus stars judging panel. The reps will go back through all the nominations we have received this year, and will help us to select our semi-finalists!