The JustUs project, led by Positive Futures working with a range of agencies, has produced resources to help people with a learning disability who have suffered sexual violence navigate the criminal justice system.

The two–year pioneering project, funded by DRILL (Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning), was led by two people supported by Positive Futures and two people supported by Compass Advocacy Network and involved the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), Queen’s University Disability Research Network, Nexus and Informing Choices NI.

Explaining why the JustUs project is so critical, Chief Executive of Positive Futures, Agnes Lunny, told this newspaper: “Research tells us that people with a learning disability are more likely to experience sexual violence than the rest of the population but also we know that people with a learning disability are much less likely to report those crimes.”

She continued: “For an organisation like Positive Futures, that’s absolutely clear about equality and human rights, we wanted to take this opportunity with Queen’s and Nexus to say what is it? Why are people not reporting these crimes?”

“Our main concern when we started was that the trauma of those affected was being compounded by the complexity and lack of understanding in the justice process. We hope the outcome will be to establish best practice where it has not existed before,” Agnes added.

Agnes highlighted that it is important that the people Positive Futures supports are at the heart of everything they do. “From the application process time right through to the end of the project, we had people with a learning disability on our steering group, on our management of the service and involved in the delivery of the training and the interviewing,” she said, adding: “Every stage of the project, people with a learning disability influenced and shaped it, which is really important, including the influencing and shaping of all the materials that the project produced.”

As an outcome, the JustUs project has produced a guide and toolkit which includes a website, an animated video, an easy–read guide to the justice system and a card which people can give to the police explaining who they are and how they communicate best.

Agnes noted that in partnership with Nexus, they have also developed a counselling programme. “Nexus are a counselling organisation but they didn’t have expertise in counselling a person with a learning disability. They have now, with our support, developed a counselling programme which has been evaluated by Queen’s and the feedback on that evaluation from people with a learning disability has been really positive.”

The project provided a training session for 20 people from the PSNI and PPS to help them better understand the needs of people with learning disabilities. A screening system for first response officers and call handlers to enable them to determine if someone has a learning disability is being tested this year.

“This process contains many elements and many organisations so we’ve got to be absolutely clear that we deal with all of the different elements in order that in totality we’ve left nobody out so we can honestly say that justice hopefully will be done if we can get people to come forward,” Agnes added.

The outcomes were presented at a launch event in Parliament Buildings, Stormont. Sir John Gillen, who led a major review of the criminal justice system’s handling of sexual crimes, was the keynote speaker.

The easy–read guide for those affected is available in four languages, while the JustUS card to aid communication can be carried in a wallet or purse. The website is www.justusni.org.