Prynhawn Da a croeso/ Good Afternoon and welcome.
And thank you to the Bevan Foundation and Big Issue Cymru for asking me to sponsor and open this Prevention and Inclusion event.
It is clearly a hugely relevant and important, with over 100 attendees registered and many more unable to come.
The event was rearranged following the sad death of Carl Sargeant last November.
The theme of the session is prevention and inclusion – words which are very popular at the moment, but are often used without being clear what they mean.
Prevention is vital if people and organisations in Wales are going to address the major challenges we face.
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- Sticking plasters are just not enough – we need to find the underlying causes and do something to address them
- prevention means taking practical action to stop problems arising in the first place.
- To use an analogy – if people keep falling into a river, would it not be better to build a fence upstream to stop them falling in rather than endlessly rescuing them before they drown?
- Inclusion is also vital. People across the political spectrum are now talking about an ‘economy that works for all’. And we need a society that works for all too.
- Too many people in Wales have their future blighted because they do not have access to the basic things in life.
We need to fully embrace Co-production, moving beyond rhetoric and consultation to doing things differently in practice, with service professionals, services users and their communities working side by side to provide solutions.
This is about moving from needs – based approaches to strength based development - helping people in communities identify the strengths they already have, and utilising those strengths with them.
Although the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act puts in place a system where people are full partners in the design and operation of care and support too many are saying that engagement with them feels like tokenism.
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act states that Public Bodies must take all reasonable steps to ensure that people are able to contribute to their community, and that they are informed included and listened to.
To achieve this means an end to telling people what they can have, and instead asking them what they can achieve.
One of the most basic human requirements is shelter. Having a safe, secure, warm and dry home is a fundamental need.
Although it is hard for anyone to do much else if they face a night on the streets or another night on a friend’s sofa, the number of rough sleepers is increasing.
Legislation passed by the National Assembly for Wales requires local authorities to prevent homelessness - the causes are often complex and there is much more to be done.
At last September's Digartref Ynys Môn and Bangor University event in the Assembly, we heard homeless young people themselves debating youth homelessness in Wales.
They said young people living in supported accommodation could have a host of issues to deal with and may struggle with this alongside studying and assignments.
In my own Region, young people living in supported accommodation have created a ‘Youth Shed’ in Denbigh. When I visited this Grwp Cynefin project, the young people told me that this provided a safe space for them to develop and prepare themselves for independent living.
Whilst questioning the First Minister about this in February, I told him that these young people are calling for him to support young people so that every town in Wales to have a Youth Shed.
I am pleased to welcome Sophie Howe, who will speak first.
Sophie is the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. Preventing problems before they arise is at the heart of her work, and I am sure she will remind us of its importance in her speech.
I am of course delighted to welcome Lord John Bird.
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- John has experience of deep poverty, homelessness and being in custody, before building on his prison education to found The Big Issue in the early 1990s
- And then found Big Issue Invest in the early 2000s
- His 'prevention, emergency, coping and cure' model argues the importance of prevention rather than just putting resources into emergency and coping.
- In 2015 he became a people’s peer and now sits as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords.
John will speak for about 20-25 minutes after Sophie and will also take questions.
We all have much to learn here today, so please welcome Sophie Howe and then John Bird.
Dioch/thank you.