There has been a lot of research about the difficulties people have faced through the Covid pandemic.

Most of us have experienced loneliness and anxiety over the past year.

But there has been much less research and information about what life has been like for people with learning disabilities living in ATU’s and other institutions.

Simone Aspis, Director at Changing Perspectivestalks about the main struggles faced by people who have been cut off from their family and friends for so long.

This includes isolation, digital exclusion and difficulties getting the right care and support.

To watch the vlog, either click the link below or click on the picture.

Watch Simone’s vlog here

Learning Disability England have  supported some work done by Sunderland People First in partnership with the University of Sheffield to create a website of self advocacy groups in England.

You can see the map and search for groups here

Add your group to the map here

The map and the work was funded through a Fellowes grant.

We want to make this map as useful as possible.

But we need your permission to add your group.

If you have any questions or issues with the map, please let us know by emailing info@LDEngland.org.uk

The Valuing People Alliance includes organisations who all work nationally with people with learning disabilities, autistic people, their families and the wider social care, health and disability community.

The Valuing People Alliance is part of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

The VPA is working with its networks to finalise the Alliance priorities and key projects for 2024/25.

You can read about some of the 2023 work here and past projects here

About the Alliance member organisations

The Valuing People Alliance consists of 7 organisations.

Click on the links to find out more about them and what they do.

British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD)

Learning Disability England

The National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi)

Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG)

Foundation for People with learning disabilities

Respond

The Gr8 Support Movement hosted by Paradigm

For more information about the Valuing People Alliance and its work, please contact Dave Mahon, VPA Coordinator by emailing David.Mahon@LDEngland.org.uk or phoning 0300 111 0444.

What is Good Lives: Building Change Together?

Find out more about the work in 2020 here

The framework is there for anyone who is interested. 

Learning Disability England host it but they do not control it.

Watch the video about Good Lives: Building Change Together

The Framework document

The Good Lives Framework has 6 chapters.

Find out more about the chapters here

The first session at the 2022 conference was when Good Lives: Building Change Together went live.

Watch the recording from the first session here

The next step for the Good Lives framework is for people to work together to make it better or to take action if they can

Click here for some resources that might help you

How Learning Disability England will help

Gathering information about what people are doing and sharing it

Helping to connect people

Hosting some sessions to help people share what they are doing

The project helped groups think about how to be more inclusive and good allies to tackle racism.

We know some people are treated differently because of racism or prejudice.

We know people with a learning disability from ethnic minority communities don’t get equal access to health care.

The project was to help more people know about their rights to help them get equal treatment.

Learning Disability England worked in partnership with Race Equality Foundation on this project.

It was funded by NHS England.

There were 3 strands of work in the project.

A coproduction group helped choose the partners for the work.

Strand 1: Strengthening inclusive self-advocacy

Changing Our Lives worked with 10 self-advocacy groups to deliver training to help them understand and challenge racism.  

They supported self-advocates and senior leadership teams to think about how to be anti-racist and plan for how they could be more inclusive in their work in future. 

You can read more about Changing Our Lives here

Strand 2: Strengthening family led or parent peer support

Contact led a similar piece of work with 13 family carer groups. 

Their training was created through conversations with each group to understand their needs. 

It helped them to develop a practical understanding of representation and inclusion, intersectionality, how to identify information gaps and action planning. 

You can find out more about Contact here 

Strand 3: Strengthening local community responses on tackling health inequalities and unfair treatment

Include Me Too worked with community groups led by people from minority ethnic communities. 

They worked with groups who don’t work with people with learning disabilities all the time to include them more in their work. 

We wanted to help connect community groups led by ethnic minority communities with groups led by self-advocates and families. 

Include Me Too held a series of online workshops and seminars to bring people together and create space for people to have conversations about shared inequalities. 

You can find out more about Include Me Too here

Shared Learning  

Some of the key learning from the project included: 

• Most organisations involved in the training hadn’t talked about anti-racism before 
• People and organisations wanted to talk about and learn about how to challenge racism 

• Most groups don’t collect data about the ethnicity of the people they work with or their local community. 
• Support staff often don’t feel confident enough to support people who experience racism.

Resources: 

We held a learning session where all three of strand of the project shared their learning.

You can watch it here: 

Presentations from all three speakers sharing their learning are here   

You can view a number of anti-racism resources created by Changing Our Lives here

 You can view Contact’s Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit here and an easier read version here

If you would like to find out more about the project you can email: rachael.hall@LDEngland.org.uk