FANE celebrates relaunch of www.friendsaction.co.uk with free internet drop-in sessions at libraries across the North East

Friends Action North East (FANE) is excited to tell you that we have revamped our website, www.friendsaction.co.uk, to be even more accessible and user-friendly than before. To celebrate, we are running a series of free drop-in sessions at libraries across the North East to encourage people to get online and register with the website to enable them to digitally access information about their community. Please see attached poster for details of these drop-in sessions.

With the help of other organisations, we are keen to populate the new website with as much information as possible so that we can all work together to help the North East’s learning disabled community make informed choices about the places they visit and the activities they attend. Therefore, if anyone has anything they’d like to share on the website, please do get in touch us on info@friendsaction.co.uk or call us on 0191 231 4327. This can be anything from resources relating to your organisation, or interesting news, events, meetings or groups.

Many of you may be aware that FANE is a charity which seeks to work alongside adults with learning disabilities across North Tyneside, Newcastle and Gateshead to give them the confidence and skills to form lasting friendships with likeminded people. Friendship and socialising still remains the ethos behind the features of our website.

The new layout aims to support more learning disabled needs, including the most up-to-date Recite function, which reads aloud the website text in English as well as changes text size and background colours.

Key features of www.friendsaction.co.uk include the fully interactive community map which lists disabled access information and the whereabouts of groups and venues, from pubs to meeting groups to community centres. Whilst you don’t need to register with the website to access information, if you do take the time to register, you can rate experiences at venues as well as see what others are saying about the places they visit. From one-off events, to regular meetings, the what’s on section is still a great tool for planning social activities and now that it links up with the Community Map, people can find out how to get to the events which interest them. The website also provides useful information about other organisations who offer help and support as well as provide some great online resources relating to a variety of subjects, from relationships, to money matters, to keeping safe.

Please take the time to have a look around the website and encourage other people to do the same. By working together in this way we hope to help adults with learning disabilities overcome some of the barriers to getting online, as well as support that community in digitally providing them with information to enhance social lives and build lasting friendships.