York Mind

Creating the SelfAdvocates Comic

Lee Greenfield
January 2016

Contents
What is Self-Advocacy? ............................................................................................. 2
About the Self-Advocates Forum ............................................................................... 2
Why the Forum is Important ....................................................................................... 2
Planning the Project ................................................................................................... 2
Choosing an Illustrator ............................................................................................ 3
Applying for the Grant ............................................................................................. 3
Starting the Project ................................................................................................. 3
Why a Comic? ............................................................................................................ 4
Choosing the Storylines ............................................................................................. 4
Story One Da-Electric .......................................................................................... 4
Story Two - Jargon .................................................................................................. 5
Story Three Information Raider ............................................................................ 5
Comic Workshops ...................................................................................................... 8
Pictures from the comic workshops ........................................................................ 8
Comic Characters....................................................................................................... 9
Creating the Villains ................................................................................................. 10
Illustrating the Comic ................................................................................................ 11
What the Self-Advocates Enjoyed ............................................................................ 15
What York Advocacy Have Learnt From This Project .............................................. 15
Contact Details ......................................................................................................... 15

What is Self-Advocacy?
Self Advocacy enables a person to speak up for themselves and helps them to take
control and make their own choices and decisions. Members of the forum are called
self-advocates.
About the Self-Advocates Forum
York Mind have been facilitating a self-advocates forum for people with learning
disabilities since 2012. The forum is an opportunity for self-advocates with a learning
disability to come together and discuss topics which are important to them
individually and for all people with a learning disability.
The forum offers a space for self-advocates to share ideas, speak up, and learn new
things.
At the forum self-advocates meet new people, make friends and have an opportunity
to meet and speak to professionals in local services. They find out about new
services and activities they may be interested in and speak up about important topics
to promote change. The forum also links into the Mental Health and Learning
Disability Partnership Board in York, (MHLDB).
Self-advocates have given feedback about the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
(JSNA), collaborated with Healthwatch and other local service providers so people
with learning disabilities opinions are heard and taken into account.
They have also produced a newsletter called Our Voice Together and each year
plan a Christmas social. Last year we had a karaoke Forum Factor!
Why the Forum is Important
The forum is a great place to get together and share information. The forum has
helped people to tackle real issues and it really does make changes.
I love the forum as people like to come and socialise, meet friends and learn new
things.
The forum has helped me to speak up and have my say about things important to
me. I am more confident and independent.
Planning the Project
Prior to starting the project we identified some initial costings to make sure we could
deliver the project and end product within the funding amount available from NHS
England. The priority for us was to identify an illustrator who could deliver in the
timescales and value indicated by NHS England, as this would be where the majority
of the work and costs lay.

Choosing an Illustrator
We were fortunate that we were aware of a local comic illustrator who was starting
up his own freelance artist/illustrating enterprise. As they had previously undertaken
commissions from individuals we were able to view the style of their previous work.
For the illustrator it was an opportunity for them to be involved in a commissioned
piece of work for a company. In addition they were interested in being involved in
some community work with the groups of people who York Advocacy work with.
Being able to retain an illustrator at the start of their career made this project cost
efficient.

Applying for the Grant

Once we obtained estimated costings for illustration and print through another local
provider we were able to develop a budget outline for other components such as
staff time for the workshops and venue hire. This initial work meant that we could
deliver in the funding amount being offered.
The application process was straightforward; the guidance information from NHS
England was accessible and the application form itself was easy to complete and
required minimal time. This was an important consideration when looking at the
values of the grant, the time we had to submit an application and more importantly
how the grant enabled us to develop aspects of the self-advocacy work we do, and
celebrate the achievements of self-advocates and people with learning disabilities.

Starting the Project

Once we were awarded the funding we implemented an action plan detailing the
timelines and activities we needed to do to complete the project and bring it in on
time. This included identifying lead people who would be facilitating the workshops
and confirming amounts and times with the illustrator.
We then informed the members of the self-advocates forum that we had been
successful in the funding application and planned the dates of the comic workshops.
Members of the forum then decided who wanted to be part of the workshops and
how involved they wanted to be in the comic itself. Some members wanted to be
more in the background and others wanted to have characters based on themselves
who appeared in the comic.
We asked self-advocates to sign consent forms for both the comic and to take
photographs for the characters and in the workshops so we could illustrate the
process we followed.
At the forum our illustrator attended and met with self-advocates who talked about
the characters they would like to be in the comic and photographs and pictures were
taken so they could be created in their likeness.

Why a Comic?
Previously in the forum self-advocates had engaged in producing a Newsletter called
Our Voice Together. In this newsletter some of the members had written their life
stories and given reviews of local activities. Feedback highlighted that they enjoyed
the creative element of the forums and also having work that they had produced or
appeared in to show friends and family.
During the work that had taken place with self-advocates sharing their life stories in
the forum they also shared their interests, likes, dislikes and hobbies. We found out
about members liking the Blues Brother and James Bond and what they enjoyed
watching and doing.
From this feedback ideas emerged about how we could make this project as
engaging as possible which would be a mix of both informative and creative. In
addition it needed to uphold the advocacy principles of speaking up and demonstrate
how self-advocates had influenced and participated in healthcare.
Information that is both pictorial and in plain English were important themes for this
project alongside demonstrating the impact that self-advocates have which goes
beyond the forum itself. We also wanted self-advocates to have fun!
From our previous work and relationship with self-advocates and feedback they had
given the idea for a Comic emerged. It also felt that it was relevant today with Marvel
Comics and superhero films being a large part of popular culture.
Choosing the Storylines
Over the last 18 months self-advocates have been involved in lots of work around
healthcare and participating in shaping and influencing local services. They had
worked alongside Healthwatch, the local learning disabilities services and the City of
York Council. They had also linked into the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities
Board (MHLDB) on the JSNA and how to engage people with Learning Disabilities
more in the meetings of the MHLDB.
From the work they had done and topics they had enjoyed getting involved with they
choose the four that they would like to use and develop into stories for the comic.
The following pages illustrate how they started to create the actual stories and
characters and build in the content.
It was important to follow the comic style of speech yet at the same time convey the
work completed and why it was important.
The titles of the story were based on the villains created.

Story One Da-Electric

The first story was a combination of two events in the forum. One of the selfadvocates had attended a Doctors appointment with their support worker. In the
appointment the Doctor had spoken to the support worker only and not the selfadvocate who was the patient and able to communicate about their health.
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On a separate occasion a member of staff from the Learning Disabilities Team asked
if any self-advocates were interested in helping them to appoint a new psychiatrist.
Two self-advocates were part of the interview panel.
As we needed to keep the comic to a set number of pages these two events were
combined into one story. The first part is about the doctors appointment which then
continues with self-advocates interviewing for a new Doctor and being involved in
recruiting staff who work with them.
Self-advocates thought it was important that professionals talk to people with
learning disabilities directly and not through support workers. Especially when they
are able to speak on their own behalf and it is their health and appointment.

Story Two - Jargon

This story was based around the importance of easy-read to help people with
learning disabilities be fully involved and included in decisions being made about
planning services.
As self-advocates had been involved in work around the Joint Strategic Needs
Assessment (JSNA) they thought this would be good to include in a story. Also the
JSNA was a complex document with jargon so it was important that information
about it was put in easy-read and self-advocates supported to understand it and its
relevance in their lives.

Story Three Information Raider

The final story came from work carried out in partnership with Healthwatch York.
Healthwatch has worked closely with the forum. Self-advocates had met the
manager when they had attended the forums and they had wanted to include their
work in the comic.
They chose the hospital discharge work they had done and this developed into the
information raider.

Comic Workshops
Self-advocates had highlighted that they found it much easier to engage in smaller
groups because it was less noisy and they had more 1-2-1 support. To ensure they
were able to fully participate in the work we arranged 3 workshops which were
attended by 6, 5 and 3 self-advocates respectively.
Two of the workshops were held in the same place as the monthly forum however,
we used smaller rooms. The third workshop was held in a local service providers
venue in a different location as this meant more people could be involved at a time
that was convenient for self-advocates.
In each workshop there were 2 members of staff to support self-advocates. Each of
the workshops developed a different story. Staff used creative materials and flip
charts to capture the ideas.

Pictures from the comic workshops

Comic Characters
Self-advocates created their own characters based on their own individual interests
and what they liked.
They decided what super powers their characters would have, the costumes,
clothing, hairstyles and colours.
Heathers character incorporates the style of the Blues Brothers, Duncans features
the traits of Robin Hood who can fly with a D on his belt to represent his name.
Louise wanted to be styled like Princess Leia from Star Wars, Katie wanted to be a
princess, Nicholas a Shape Shifter and Sam wanted to have elements of the wrestler
called The Undertaker.

Here are some of the first characters drawn.

Creating the Villains

From the stories self-advocates started to create their villains intent on stopping
them from having a voice and being involved in shaping healthcare provision.
The stories themselves helped self-advocates to think about what villain would suit
the story, they talked in the workshops about how the villains would look, walk and
talk.
They also talked about what they would find scary in a villain and some of the ideas
for the villains were taken from television and popular culture for example Dr Who.
We needed to be mindful of copyright so Da-Electric was influenced by selfadvocates watching Dr Who and his greatest enemy the Daleks.
Information Raider emerged as an alien who steals things. Raider came from a
packet of space raider crisps that were in the room!
The Jargon came about from talking about animals that were scary and how people
were scared of spiders. They also talked about how they could defeat the villains and
that spiders may be scared of water because it damages their web. This idea lead to
water balloons being used to throw the water at the web.
The name of the Jargon was picked as self-advocates use it to describe complicated
language and they thought this fitted with the story of easy-read and the JSNA.

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Illustrating the Comic

From the work in the comic workshops and draft storyboards our illustrator, Andy
started the process of drawing the different components of the comic from the
storyboards and characters.
Over the next few pages are some of these first drafts for you to see.

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What the Self-Advocates Enjoyed

Self-advocates told us what they enjoyed about this project.
They enjoyed working on the comic. They preferred to work in smaller groups and
have more 1 to 1 support. They said it was better working in smaller groups because
it was quieter and they could focus more.
They really enjoyed the creativity of the project. Instead of just looking at information
and writing things down they liked being creative and drawing their own characters
and also thinking of ideas and describing them to the rest of the group.

What York Advocacy Have Learnt From This Project

Staff facilitating the workshops highlighted how much more engaged self-advocates
were in the smaller workshops. They came up with lots of ideas and many members
within the group engaged much more within the workshops than they have done in
the larger forum meetings. Self-advocates all worked together as a team and created
characters and storylines for each part of the comic.
In addition the project has supported a local illustrator and small print company as
part of delivering the project. This local engagement promotes and publicises the
work of the forum further afield.
Overall the project celebrates the achievements and work of self-advocates with
learning disabilities and the final product the comic, is both memorable and
effective at communicating some key issues that people with learning disabilities
encounter in their lives.
It also promotes learning within our service which we can take forward. This will
influence how we continue to engage and involve self-advocates with learning
disabilities in the forum.

Contact Details
York Advocacy can be contacted on 01904 414357, via our website
www.yorkadvocacy.org.uk or email on [email protected]

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