It is not clear exactly what the prevalence of autism is amongst the population of adults with learning disabilities. Estimates vary amongst published studies and a recent review carried out by the team at Improving Health and Lives looked at a range of studies that attempted to estimate the prevalence of autism among community-based or [read the full story…]
Social inclusion is at the heart of UK policy for disabled and disadvantaged people. The right to inclusion is one of the underpinning rights set out in the 2001 White Paper ‘Valuing People’. As a concept in the research literature though, it suffers from a lack of clear definition. O’Brien identified community participation as one [read the full story…]
Self-directed support is described by InControl as an approach to social care which gives people optimum choice and control over their support arrangements. People with social care needs are offered funding to organise their own support, rather than being offered a directly provided service. There is now a clear policy direction in England and Scotland [read the full story…]
There is considerable evidence that people with learning disabilities in residential settings are prescribed anti-psychotic medication to help reduce behaviours that challenge the service. However, there can be significant side effects from these powerful drugs and for some people these can be as debilitating as the impact of the behaviours. In some instances the effects [read the full story…]
UK law requires public services to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people following the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and the Equality Act (2010), which does not cover Northern Ireland. For people with physical disabilities these have predominantly focused on the environment, whilst for people with a learning disabilities it requires more commonly clear explanations and [read the full story…]
Here at the National Elf Service, we are committed to highlighting and discussing evidence based practice. Our usual approach is to focus posts around a piece of recently published research, but this post is different, responding as it is to the tragic events of last year that led to Connor Sparrowhawk’s death. Just over a [read the full story…]
The majority of the studies relating to alcohol use by people with learning disabilities have shown that this is lower than in the general population. Studies have tended to focus on issues of misuse however, although we did post about an article a couple of years back in 2012 where the author raised a question [read the full story…]
People with learning disabilities are 10 times more likely to have serious sight problems than other people and if people have severe or profound learning disabilities, the likelihood of having sight problems is further increased. The difficulties are compounded of course when people may not know they have a problem and may not be able [read the full story…]
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) focuses on evoking desired behaviour rather than on diminishing existing problem behaviour. It is goal directed and collaborative in its approach to helping people achieve behavioural change. The therapist works to help establish a vision of a desired future using a series of precisely worded questions. In SFBT, the goal of [read the full story…]
The use of restrictive interventions should always be as a ‘last resort’ and always in the context of a clear and agreed individualised plan of support. However, the events at Winterbourne View suggested that not only was this not always the case, but that in fact these approaches were sometimes being used to humiliate or [read the full story…]
