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The Learning Disabilities Elf

HFT guide to supporting people with learning disabilities from BME communities

John Northfield

The Home Farm Trust have recently updated their guide to reaching and supporting diverse communities. This is a resource aimed at professionals working for people with learning disabilities, family carers and also for those who work in mainstream diversity and equality fields and is designed to help with meeting the needs of people with learning disabilities and family carers from newly arrived Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic (BME) Communities

The resource is broken up into six sections:

• Engaging with different communities
• Supporting communities – specific issues
• Supporting communities – specific communities
• BME families – it’s everybody’s business
• Knowing your local population
• Good practice examples from around the country.

This version includes information Included in the sections are a range of resources, including:

  • ‘Netbuddy’, a site that allows users to swap practical tips and information on all aspects of supporting people with a learning disability, autism and those with special needs.
  • Devon Grapevine – a networking and information site for people from different cultures living in Devon.
  • Afiya Trust’s ‘Living in the Margins’ social media based campaign. (Including the interim report on the impact of public sector cuts on BME families and voluntary and community groups.)
  • Personalisation Section, showing how organisations like Grapevine in Coventry support young people from different ethnic backgrounds to use personal budgets.
  • Leeds’ Gypsy and Traveller Exchange’s toolkit ‘How to engage with Gypsies and Travellers as part of your work.’

Also included – Legislation Section covering NHS Reforms  as well as links to the Manifesto for Change and Inclusion from the Equalities National Council and a guide to Human Rights in your Community from the British Institute for Human Rights.

You can download all the parts of this resource guide here:  Reaching and Supporting Diverse Communities A guide to meeting the needs of people with learning disabilities and family carers from newly arrived Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic (BME) Communities, Baker C, , Carers Trust & Davies S.,  Hft

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Written by

After qualifying as a social worker, John worked in community learning disability teams before getting involved in a number of long-stay hospital closure programmes, working to develop individual plans for people moving into their own homes. He worked for BILD, helping to develop the Quality Network and was editorial lead for the NHS electronic library learning disabilities specialist collection. This led him to found the Learning Disabilities Elf site with Andre Tomlin as a way of making the evidence accessible to practitioners in health and social care. Most recently he has worked as part of Mencap's national quality team and also been involved in a number of national website developments, including the General Medical Council's learning disabilities site.

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  • Sue Davies

    Sue Davies

    14 years ago
    Thank you for publicising the updated BME Resource Guide, which has received very positive feedback. We have had more web hits to the Guide since you included it in your blog; we think it is important that as many people as possible who work with Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic Communities in the learning disability field are able to access the information it contains. Would you mind tweaking the credit? The updated document was created in partnership with C Baker, of Carers Trust (not Hft), and Home Farm Trust is now known as Hft. Many thanks!
    • 1 reply
    • John Northfield
      John Northfield 14 years ago
      Hi Sue Thanks for your comment. I am delighted to hear that our posting helped to drive up traffic to your site and to the work you did to produce the guide. Here at WELD we are committed to providing access to the evidence whether that’s from large scale systematic reviews or small scale projects. Apologies for the mistake in the credits – of course I will make the changes you suggest, john