Health Action Superheroes – January 2016

Each month a group of self-advocates meet
together in a forum. The forum is for people
with Learning Disabilities.
The minutes of our forums are put into easy
read and sent to the Mental Health and
Learning Disabilities Partnership Board.
York Advocacy were given a
Celebrating Participation in
Healthcare Grant from NHS England.
We used the grant to create a comic which showed some of
the work that self-advocates had done with health services.
They created characters based on themselves and decided on
the story lines. We hope you enjoy reading the stories and
meeting the health action superheroes and villains trying to
prevent self-advocates having a voice!
Our first story is called Da-Electric
This is about a self-advocate who attends a GP
appointment with their support worker. At the
appointment the GP speaks to the support
worker and not the self-advocate.
Later in the forum self-advocates are asked by
the Community Team for People with Learning
Disabilities if they would like to help interview
people for a new job they had.
Self-advocates were happy to interview but on the way were
taken away by the Da-Electric! Self-advocates had to plan a
daring rescue so they could get to the interview on time.
Our next story is called Jargon.
It’s about the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.
JSNA for short. Self-advocates did some work on
the JSNA with the Mental Health and Learning
Disabilities Partnership Board.
The story is about how the Jargon monster wants to get rid of
easy-read making it harder for self-advocates to have a voice
and be involved in planning services. Our superheroes have to
work together to stop the Jargon monster.
Our final story is called Information Raider.
York asked self-advocates to share
their experiences of being discharged
from hospital. This information was going to be put in a report
for the Health and Wellbeing Board.
Before the report could be sent it was stolen by the Information
Raider and self-advocates had to get it back to Healthwatch!
If you would like us to show you how self advocates created the storyboard and
comic please email us at
[email protected].
A BIG THANK YOU!
A message from Lee Greenfield (Service Manager, York
Advocacy).
Thank you to NHS England for awarding the Participation in
Healthcare Grant to York Mind who deliver York Advocacy and
for their support with this project.
Many people have been involved in creating this comic. I’d like
to thank self-advocates who give their time and voice in the
forums and those who attended the workshops. They created
their characters and chose the stories that they wanted to tell.
To all of the staff in York Advocacy, Jamie and Darrin who
supported self-advocates in the comic workshops, and Kayti
who took the ideas and stories and put them into storyboards
ready to be illustrated.
A big thank you to Andy our illustrator for his time and
commitment to this project. Andy met with self-advocates and
turned their ideas and characters into super action heroes and
villains and created a fantastic comic.
Thank you to all of the speakers and guests who work in local
services and who have attended the forum and supported selfadvocates to have a voice.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this comic as much as we
all enjoyed making it!
Self-Advocates
Duncan Mace
David Cartwright
Louise Hicken
Katie Douglas
Heather Martin
Helen Harrison
Anthony Long
Nicholas Ramsey Gunn
Robert Hudson
Leanne Metcalfe
Stephanie Arksey
Michelle Ward
Robin Plumley
Sam Hind
Darren Waterworth
Rachel Griffiths
Tim Crossley
York Advocacy (York Mind)
Jamie Edwards
Darrin Thomson
Kayti Ball
And…
Sian Balsom ,
Healthwatch York
Sarah Walker, Clinical Team
Manager – Learning Disabilities
Team, Systems House
City of York Council
Mental Health and Learning
Disability Partnership Board
About the artist
Andy Hurst is a local York illustrator. Inspired by the comic artists
Darwyn Cooke and Bruce Timm, his art style is reminiscent of the
Golden Age of comic books with a modern twist.
Andy has enjoyed drawing this comic and has loved working directly with
the Self Advocates and the York Mind Team in its creation.
You can see more of his work on his website; www.andyhurst.co.uk
Copyright © January 2016. York Mind. All rights reserved.