Learning Disabilities

The city council offers different types of help and support for people with learning disabilities. This might be helping people do things in the daytime, like work or leisure activities, or helping people find a place to live. We have listed the different types of help we offer on the left. Click on each one to find out more about it.

What is a learning disability?
A learning disability affects the way someone learns, communicates or does some everyday things. Someone with a learning disability will find it hard to understand new or complicated information and to learn new skills. They also find it difficult to cope on their own and be independent.

Many people with learning disabilities also have physical or sensory disabilities, which affect their movement, sight or hearing.

Some people are born with a learning disability and some people develop a learning disability after they are born. This could have been caused by having an illness when they were a child, or an accident. If someone has a learning disability, they will have it for the rest of their life.

How do learning disabilities affect people’s lives?
There are many different types of learning disability. Some people do not need a lot of support in their lives. But other people may need support with all sorts of things, like getting dressed, going shopping, or filling in forms.

Some people with a learning disability also have a physical disability. This can mean they need a lot of support 24 hours a day.

A learning disability does not stop someone from learning and achieving a lot in life, if they get the right support.

Learning Disabilities Partnership Board
The Department of Health has produced a new strategy for Learning Disability, called Valuing People. In Stoke-on-Trent, a partnership board has been set up to make sure that Valuing People works for Stoke-on-Trent people with learning disabilities and their carers.

The board needs to make sure that:

• all the different groups and people working on Valuing People are doing the things that they should be
• people are working well together and involving people with learning disabilities and their carers in plans and decisions
• everyone understands what the partnership board is and how it works
• the plans and changes being made are improving the lives of people with learning disabilities and their carers.

To see a copy of Valuing People, click here. Or you can visit the partnership board's website, by clicking here. This website is designed to be used by people with learning disabilities. It tells you about the board and its sub-groups, what work they do and gives you updates from meetings.

Other organisations that can help

Mencap is a national charity working with people with a learning disability and their families and carers. Click here to go to the Mencap website. They also have an office in Stoke-on-Trent, phone 01782 848800.