With this website we want to be able to show that politics is not a separate thing that only some people are interested in, but rather that politics affects everybody.
Engaging with this process should be central to involving a person in the decision making that affects their everyday life.
We hope to show that supporting someone to have a say about what is important to them is something that we could, and should, be doing all year round and ongoing.
The first thing to do is to support someone to find out who their representatives are, and to make a list of these with their contact details. This is very important information which people should have alongside other key contacts, such as GPs or advocates. You can download a form for this from our 'How to get involved' section.
People now recognise the importance of involving and including people in their local communities. It is not enough to simply live in a community. In fact a key part of the role of supporting others is about ensuring that they have a presence, and real connections to others, in their local community.
As you will see, many of the activities suggested in the 'How to get involved' section are great ways of involving and including people in communities. For example, a lot of the activities that people could be involved in are those of joining or setting up groups in the local community.
For some people this could be joining a self advocacy group, or for others a local action group.
One of the first things you need to do when supporting someone, is to find out about their interests, aspirations or concerns. It is unusual for a person to have a unique interest or concern. There is an extremely good chance that within the local or wider community there are other people with the same interests. These people may already have set up a group.
If the person you support does not have much experience with joining groups then you may need to take the lead in creating opportunities for them to try this out.
A bit of research like reading local papers, visiting libraries and local community centres or searching online, can reveal information about what local groups already exist and how new members can join. You may be surprised just how many local and wider community groups there are and the range of topics, concerns and interests they represent.
Do not forget to ask around amongst family, friends and colleagues, as there is usually someone who knows something, or can point you in the right direction.
The person you support may want to join the local branch of a political party, or become a member of a charity and be part of a larger lobbying group. Remember though that politics is not just about these more obvious groups.
The person you support may want to be part of a local group of ramblers who, as well as rambling, simply want to make sure footpaths are maintained and kept open. This is still about campaigning and having a say in the decision making process.
Likewise someone may want to join a group that is interested in local history. This is not a political activity as such, but may well involve things like lobbying the council for better access to local historical buildings or council records.
It is hard to think of an activity that does not have a political element.
When thinking about supporting someone to join a group, it is sometimes easy to assume that a new member would have to be someone who could use speech or be confident about communicating in a group, or with strangers. We can often rule people out of certain activities because of assumptions we make about them. However, it is not usually a requirement of joining a group that you need to be a vocal or confident participant. A person wanting to join a group may simply need some support to communicate with the other members.
Participating in a group could be about simply being part of it, observing what is happening and letting your presence be noticed and acknowledged. This can in itself be useful, influential and rewarding, both for the person participating and the rest of the group.
You could support someone to join a group online. There are groups, or forums, about most interests and they are usually quite straightforward to join.
If there are no existing groups that match the person you support and their interests or concerns you could support them to set up a group.
For example, perhaps the person you support is worried about traffic speeding down the road they live on. You could help that person to make a leaflet about these concerns and post it through all the doors on the street inviting people to join or support an action group.
You could support that person to organise a meeting at a local hall or community centre and invite along local residents. You could ask council officials and police officers with responsibility for road safety to come along and talk at your meeting about these concerns.
You could support someone to set up a website, or forum, about their interests or concerns. It may be simpler to support someone to set up a page on existing social network websites like MySpace or Facebook.
Using the same example of the person concerned about speeding traffic, there are lots of other ways you could help someone to campaign about this issue. You could support that person to start a petition about the traffic and ask local people to sign it. You could support that person to write a letter to their local politicians or MP about the issue and ask others to sign it or send their own letters.
You could support that person to write to local papers or try and interest local radio and television stations in their story and campaign.
The most obvious activities to look at when talking about getting involved with politics are joining or supporting a political party and campaigning or voting in elections.
To help support someone with these activities as well as this pack, there are other resources available that you can use. For example the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) produced a booklet called Getting involved in a political party - Information for people with learning disabilities.
The DRC are now called the Equality and Human Rights Commission and you could contact them to ask for a copy of this. Their contact details are in the 'links' section of this website.
The Electoral Commission have produced a simple illustrated guide to voting for people with learning difficulties.
This can be downloaded from the toolkit on the website www.dopolitics.org.uk.
You can help someone to find out what people in some political parties are saying by supporting them to read the papers, listen to the radio, or watch the news and political programmes on the television.
It is important to avoid bias and avoid selecting what information you are supporting people to access. For example if you are supporting someone to watch a party political broadcast, you should give them the opportunity to see other broadcasts, or at least explain that other parties will have broadcasts and find out when they are on, giving people an opportunity to view them if they want to.
You could ask all the main political parties for a copy of their manifesto or other literature explaining what they think. As there are hundreds of political parties it is OK to focus on the main ones, although important to explain that there are many more. If someone is interested you could help them find out more about these.
You could help someone to access the websites of all the main political parties, or the ones they are interested in.
If there is an election due you can contact the council for a list of all the candidates standing in the election in that area. You could then support someone to find and look at literature from all of these candidates.
You could help someone to decide who they want to vote for by drawing up a list of the things that matter most to that person. You could then look at all the information you have received before an election to see what each of the candidates or political parties say about these things. This might help someone come to a decision, however, each individual must always make up her or his own mind about who they want to vote for.
Someone you support may not want to go to a polling station to vote. They may not be able to go to a polling station.
You could help them to apply to the council for a postal vote. This will allow them to make their choice and vote at home.
Remember that a person's choice about who to vote for is a private matter.
They may want help with this so perhaps plan ahead about how you can do this in a way that offers someone privacy but also supports them if necessary.
For example, for someone who cannot read the names, you could look at using pictures or symbols alongside the names on the ballot paper to help illustrate who the different candidates are (remember not to permanently mark the ballot paper, you could invalidate it!).
A proxy vote is for someone who has not asked for a postal vote but who is prevented from going to the polling station in person, for example because they have been admitted to hospital. They can ask someone to vote for them. This obviously involves a degree of trust and it may help to get agreement from friends and family about who the 'proxy' should be.
You can contact the council to find out more about a proxy vote and how to apply for one.
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