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Hi,
I’m Jude Baker the new Independent Travel Co-ordinator at Hawkley Brook College who has no mean feat following in Don’s shoes!
There have been a few technical difficulties which have delayed Coolmove getting up and running again but WATCH THIS SPACE………………
I look forward to hearing from you soon and sharing our good travel training news.
Regards, Jude |
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Message from Don
Just in case you were wondering what has happened to the website recently: - well my excuse is as good as they come.
After a month spent doing some independent travel of my own in Croatia (can definitely recommend that), I have retired.
Although the boots are hanging up in the corner of the office, I am allowed in occasionally to put them back on.
Sadly I haven't got the time to keep the website up to date, but I'm determined to pass it on to someone who can. At the moment , things are not resolved, but when Coolmove is up and running again, we'll be letting the usual bunch of bus and train fanatics know by email.
All the best for now. Incidentally, retirement isn't quite so bad as some of you might think.
Don
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| ID Card Query from Surrey |
Hello Don
Thank you for the developing ideas about a help card for people learning to travel - the ideas are looking good.
At a Travel Forum in Surrey recently, there were many requests for an ID card for staff who are travel trainers - again we would hope that it could be a nationally recognised card, so transport drivers and police would know the person was supporting a learner.
Has anyone, apart from Essex County Council, developed such a card? Thanks Phil Mack
'About Us' life skills training service, Surrey County Council
Based at The Squirrels, The Horseshoe, Bolters Lane, Banstead Surrey SM7 2BG
Tel: 01737 737149 Mob: 07811 187650
Website: www.aboutus.org.uk
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| Research into Travel Difficulties |
Department for Transport has produced some useful research into the barriers that people with disabilities face when they want to travel for whatever reason. The research is based on 44 interviews with travellers who may experience difficulties, but is not purely anecdotal,as they have systematically withdrawn data from recordings of the interviews, so it can be said to be fairly authoritative.
Most travel trainers will probably see it as a series of statements of the obvious, but it's good to demonstrate occasionally that the obvious is also the truth.
Until recently this has not been a properly researched area, but this is a document that training projects can use to justify their methods and their whole reason for existence.
Look at this before applying for that next pot of finance!
You can find the document at:
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Thanks for all the interest in the idea of a standardised help card.
Time to unveil a design. The ones above show that we are not looking for tastefully published works of art, but something that anybody can do inside an easily recognised box. The ones below are tastefully modelled by Ryan and Oliver.
A yellow background was a good start because it's the clearest background that isn't just plain white. The black triangle on a yellow background appears on directed routes on traffic signs, but I've gone for it because it is the simplest possible shape to draw and to recognise. Would it be seen by a person galloping by on a fast horse? Hopefully, yes.
To make it neat it's in a square frame and the rectangle can feature the name of a training or caring organisation.
Which leaves plenty of room for a clear message underneath. No punctuation makes the words clearer.
Whatever size fits the bill. Ryan's card might stop a bus. It's A4. A folding A3 card might be better. Oliver's card fits in his wallet.
You can do the whole thing on a computer and laminate it, or just make blank ones and write the message on in permanent marker.
Remember, the object of the exercise is to get a design (not necessarily this one) adopted all over the country so that any train conductor, bus driver, police officer, traffic warden, bus station operative anywhere will know that a person with a disability needs a moment of their time. |
What do you think? Comments and criticism please to the usual contact address.
Thanks to Kevin Northrop of Manchester Travel Training Partnership for designing a travel training logo that could be used with our help card. Any comments? Any more ideas?
On a theme related to Help-Cards, we've had this from Lee:-
Hi my name is Lee Dibnah, I work for The East Riding of Yorkshire Council
and manage a team who provide a range of supports to people who have
disabilities.
One of the areas of work we cover is Independent Travel Training. What we
are using in The East Riding is a simple wallet scheme called the Liberty
Wallet. This plastic wallet which has is bright orange and has 10 credit
card sized sleeves inside, which people can put whatever information they
feel would assist them to travel independently. They can also be used to
keep travel passes in so everthing they need to use transport is together.
Through our Partnership Board Sub group on transport, we have worked with
our local transport providers so that the drivers are aware that any person
carrying these wallets may needs some additional support / assistance.
We are currently working with Hull, York and North Licolnshire as they are
keen to implement the scheme within their area.
If you would like more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards.
Lee.
Lee Dibnah - Senior Care Officer
The Outreach and Transitions Team
Children, Family and Adult Services
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
Tel / Fax: 01482 860530
Travel Quiz - All about Safety in the Street - is now up and running!
Get your travelling people to try it. How safe do they think they are? Click on the pic! 
| Our Westminster Correspondents Want To Get To Know You..... |
We are the PIP travel training project based within Westminster London. You might be wondering what PIP stands for? Well PIP stands for Pursuing Independent Paths. We aim specifically to travel train people with learning disabilities in and around the London borough of Westminster. We are a project that has been running since 2006 and so far we have successfully trained many people to independence! We are very happy to be on Coolmove and to have found so many people who share our passion for travel training! If you would like to find out some more information about ourselves then please feel free to visit our website at: www.piponline.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from and speaking with you all!
Best wishes,
Belinda, Charlotte, Lenka and Nigel
(AKA: The Travel Training Team!)
Check out the Buddy Scheme at Hounslow
This London Borough doesn't just train people with disabilities. It trains them to train others.
Click the pic to find out more!
| Join the Coolmove Campaign! |
As from today, Coolmove is starting a small campaign (because we're a very small organisation). There are lots of occasions when people with disabilities want to ask a simple question, just to get them on their way:- Where is platform 2A? - Where do I catch the bus to Nuneaton? - Where is the TOILET? - 36/2 bus? - Does this train stop at Adisham?
Coolmove wants to see a standard format for a card of any size, from Credit Card to A3 (if necessary), which any bus driver, rail staff, parking attendant, PCSO, tram driver in the country would recognise as saying, "I'm travelling somewhere and I need your help now".
Lots of organisations and travel training projects have produced their own formats: usually little cards with a message or a phone number on. But wouldn't it be great if they all looked the same?
Better still, wouldn't it give our travellers so much more confidence if they knew they could produce this card and it would be instantly recognised and there would be no expectation that they would have to explain themselves in clear English?
It has to be simple. All we're thinking of is a yellow background for the message with a prominent green triangle at the side because that's about the simplest symbol you could devise.
We don't want to produce them. We want anybody to be able to make them.
Got the picture? Any better ideas?
The day New York City came to Wigan
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You Have Arrived at Coolmove! |
Welcome to Coolmove. If this is your first visit to the site, a big hello. Please have a good look round to see if there's anything you might find useful.
This is officially the nation's coolest travel training website. We are here to help travel trainers working with adults with disadvantages and to let them know that there are lots of us doing the same thing up and down the UK.
What this website is here for:
We want to provide a meeting point for the many travel trainers out there in education, social services, health, careers services and whatever else, who don't know what else is going on and who else is doing the same tasks as themselves. Believe us: there are thousands of you.
We have suddenly become fashionable!
The best resource you could possibly get is advice from each other.
We are here for the benefit of 16 to 19 year olds with special needs but we don't want to be exclusive, so, if in doubt, contact us.
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| Travel Training for the Over18s in Merton |
The London Borough of Merton have an established travel training programme for anyone over the age of 18 whose disabilities may affect their potential to get about on their own.
Trainers Sandy and Barry use a three-stage programme, beginning with Awareness for Pedestrians and moving on to Safe Travel. Any one who gets through these successfully may be eligible for the next stage, which is Independent Travel. But, according to Jennifer Batchelor, who identifies clients for the training programme, the most important aspect is the willingness of carers and their support for the scheme.
Independent travellers are now getting themselves to work placements and are able to apply successfully for jobs as a result of training. Those who are not going to travel completely on their own can be fixed up with a buddy or use Dial-a-Ride, which is a route to semi-independence and free at the point of service.
Working from the Jan Malinowski Centre in Mitcham, the team currently have twenty two clients, five of whom they expect to achieve independence soon. But there are surprises, and some people go on to be independent quite unexpectedly.
The team receive funding from the Learning Disability Development Fund and the Council, and are in the enviable position of having permanent posts!
You can see Merton’s travel training in action on their YouTube video.
(The link takes you to a series of video-links on Merton's website. If you can't see a YouTube screen you may need some video software, such as Adobe Flash Player. Education networks may filter out YouTube.)
| Unwelcome Fellow Travellers |
Lynda Reddish, who recently contacted us from her school in Rochdale, is looking for DVDs which she can use to prepare her trainees on the subject of 'stranger danger' and bullying. Lots of projects have made travel training videos, many of them with good content and excellent production values, but we don't know of any that tackle this particular area. It's a little harder to do than your average 'Johnny gets to school' story. If anyone has any good suggestions, could you share them with Lynda and with Coolmove? Contact Lynda at
You don't have to be called Lynda to contact Coolmove, but it obviously helps!
| Manchester Travel Training Symposium Shows New Perspectives |
The Travel Training Symposium held in Manchester on 13th January by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive heard descriptions of travel training schemes in New York, Salzburg, Gothenburg and (of course) Manchester.
The meeting was aimed at interested parties from the North-West but the audience came from far and wide.
The meeting achieved its main aim of opening up questions of funding, organisation, training, pay, accreditation and how travel training dovetails perfectly with our national ambitions regarding changing and improving our patterns and habits in travel and transport.
At last we have got away from trying to persuade people that travel training is (like loving your mum) a good thing. Now we can talk about how we're going to do it.
Speakers were: Peggy Groce, the Director of District 75 Training Scheme, New York City
Angelika Gasteiner, from Salzburg in Austria on training older people
Eva Rodsta, from Gothenburg on the Gothenburg City Travel Training Scheme.
Anne Thornber on Manchester Travel Training Project.
| Take a look at South Gloucestershire's Independence Project |
Hello there fellow Travel Trainers!! Greetings from the Manchester Travel Training Partnership! Formed earlier this year we are a team of 5 specialist Travel Trainers. Our aim is to equip Manchester’s students with the skills they need to travel to and from school or college using Public Transport. Our students’ age range is 11-16, although we are also looking into transition work between primary and secondary school.
After a successful first year our funding has been approved for next year, and we may well expand in the near future. We hope to visit other Travel Training projects over the next year to get lots more ideas.
Look forward to meeting many of you, no doubt, at the Travel Training Forum in Manchester on October 30th. We also have a DVD about us, do get in contact if you wish to see a copy.
Catherine Mannion runs SPARC in Warrington, Cheshire. SPARC stands for Supporting People Achieving Real Choice. They have been working since 1995 with people with learning problems to give them travel skills and the skills necessary to hold down employment.
More about them soon but click on the image to get to their website:
Essex County Councils award winning Travel Training Team are pleased to be able to launch their new DVD
Shot recently this DVD covers most issues in the travel training process and would be useful to those new to travel training as well as a good piece of kit for established trainers.For more details contact:
For more about travel training in Essex click on the "What's Happening" page.
| Bradford College Gets Accreditation |
Chris Walters, manager of Bradford Travel Training Unit, is currently celebrating the granting of accredited status to the course he runs at Bradford College for people aspiring to become travel trainers.
This is a major step forward for Chris and the travel training community as a whole. Bradford College is not the only organisation to hit the accreditation trail, but they appear to have got there first (although New Horizons Partnership, based in Strabane, Northern Ireland have been running an accredited course for a few years now).
You can contact Chris on 01274 436199 or
| Halton's Travel Training DVD |
You can't train for independent travel just by watching a video, but this one gives a really good, snappy, short introduction to what it's all about. Jacqui Dunbavin made it with kids and staff from Ashley School, Widnes and she's giving it away FREE!
Has to be a real bargain.
For a review of the DVD click here: 
Contact Jacqui at:
