*** Please note, this event is now full. If you would lke to express an interest in attending, please email Oliver Lewis o.lewis@doughtystreet.co.uk ***

We are convening a meeting to discuss how the law can be used to help people with learning disabilities or autism detained in assessment and treatment units (“ATUs”) or other facilities. The meeting will be an opportunity for families of detained people to outline the human rights issues facing their relatives, and for lawyers (solicitors and barristers) to listen and think.

At the meeting we will try to cluster the various legal issues that arise in ATUs and understand the reasons why people are detained in ATUs at all, and for so long. After the meeting, lawyers can figure out how the law may be used to challenge these various different aspects. We will then develop a plan for strategic litigation. Strategic litigation or “test cases” are legal proceedings that help an individual and highlight systemic problems and put pressure on the authorities to solve these problems.

WHO CAN ATTEND THE MEETING?

• People with a son or daughter (or other relative) currently or previously detained in an ATU
• Independent Mental Health Advocates working in ATUs
• Solicitors or barristers willing to provide legal advice and representation to people in ATUs
• Representatives of campaigning charities, small disability charities and statutory bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission

ARE THERE ANY GROUND-RULES?

The meeting will be a safe space for people to share their stories and make connections. It will conducted under the Chatham House Rule whereby participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

WHY ARE YOU HOLDING THIS MEETING?

Concern about young people detained as in-patients in ATUs and other facilities led to “Seven Days of Action” campaign in 2016 (https://theatuscandal.wordpress.com/). This campaign brought wider attention to a problem that few people in the country knew about. Since then, there has been some more focus and some more collaboration among parents, but “the system” remains the same. A few ad hoc legal challenges have been tried but have not made significant dents into the way in which young people are trapped in ATUs for years.

We have heard from parents who have attended managers hearings and Mental Health Tribunals, but without appropriate accommodation and a package of care arranged after discharge, tribunals are reluctant to order discharge. The parents saw how their children were then not looked after properly in the ATUs. As a result of under-trained staff and a culture of using restraints and seclusion rather than prevention, their children became more and more institutionalised and their behaviours worsened to the extent that some are on the brink of entering the criminal justice system. This can’t be an appropriate way of treating young people with learning disabilities.

WHAT IT I CAN’T GET TO THE MEETING ON THAT DAY?

We realise that many people won’t be able to attend this meeting. Unfortunately, we have no funding to pay for travel expenses and we can’t do a web-meeting. But this is not going to the only meeting and we want to hear from people nationwide. Please send an email to Oliver at o.lewis@doughtystreet.co.uk to express an interest in keeping informed.