Safe Places in Gateshead
A Safe Place is a place you can go to if you feel unsafe or lost when you are out and about.
I wanted to find out if people with learning disabilities in Gateshead know what a Safe Place is.
I spoke to 30 people with learning disabilities in Gateshead. They were from Gateshead people, In Team, the Lawnmowers, Guidepost and community links.
I made a questionnaire to find out what people knew about Safe Places.
What I found out:
Almost half of the people I spoke to did not know what a safe Place was. They had never heard of the scheme. Most were able to say what they would do if they did not feel safe.
We need to do some more work raising awareness about safe places in Gateshead so that more people with learning disabilities and their cares know about the scheme.
Secret Shoppers!
On Wednesday 29th March I did some ‘secret shoppers’ with David Taylor from Talk 2 Us, another self-advocacy group in South Tyneside.
We pretended that one of us was in trouble and we were checking if the people at the Safe Places were helpful.
The places we checked were:
The Sage
Tesco in Trinity Square
Gateshead Interchange Travel Shop
We found that most places were helpful and friendly. It showed us that Safe Places are a good idea.
Gateshead People need to get some funding so we can do some work to establish some more Safe Places.
