Landmark conference for health, police, social care and education professionals of the East of England

‘Can you hear me?’ The Voice of the Service User conference is being organised by University Campus Suffolk (UCS) and will be held at Trinity Park. It will look at how with an increasingly challenging environment, it is more important than ever to work with other professions and people in the community who rely on public services.

Suzanna Pickering, Senior Lecturer in Social Work in the Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work at UCS, said “The conference will feature best practice demonstrating how multidisciplinary teams have improved and can continue to enhance the lives of patients, victims of crime, offenders, children and young people, the homeless and the marginalised. It has the voice of the community at its heart.”

Members of the public will be sharing their experiences of various services in the hope this will increase awareness and instigate change within various professions.

Gulshan Kayembe will be the keynote speaker. She said “I’m delighted to be involved in the conference. I will be talking about the example of the investigation into the murders of five women in Suffolk in 2006 by Steve Wright, and what we did afterwards not just as a police force in Suffolk but as Suffolk to keep women safer.”

“I felt it was important to be involved in a conference of this nature which aims to bring together professionals from a wide range of social, voluntary and public service organisations. The investigation and subsequent work to support vulnerable women could not have been successful without a significant level of multi-agency work and indeed the input and support from the private sector and journalists.”

“It’s important to talk about what made these partnerships work so well and to look for ways of promoting excellent partnership work in today’s world of shrinking budgets but increasing social and economic issues in our local communities.”

The conference will take place on 20 April from 9.30am-4.30pm at Trinity Park Conference and Events Centre, Felixstowe Road, Ipswich, IP3 8UH.

To attend please book via the UCS events page by going to www.ucs.ac.uk and looking at What’s on.