People with learning disabilities may face a number of challenges in the area of sexuality, including lack of access to information, fewer sexual experiences, negative attitudes and more experience of sexual abuse. To begin to address some of these issues, a number of sex education programmes have been developed by professionals. This study from the [read the full story…]
As you know, here at Elf towers our aim is to bring you the published evidence in supporting people with learning disabilities, but occasionally we will also draw your attention to practice tools and resources that we think might help improving people’s lives. Today, we wanted to draw your attention to some materials produced in Essex [read the full story…]
As more and more people with learning disabilities are accessing ordinary community services and using individual budgets to purchase their own support there is a need to produce good accessible materials. To respond to this challenge, BILD, the British Institute of Learning Disabilities have recently published a range of materials, including written guides and DVDs [read the full story…]
Access to information about pregnancy is crucial for parents to be. For people with learning disabilities, faced with a variety of new choices to make, this is especially true. However, there is little information currently available about pregnancy for people with learning disabilities. As the number of women with learning disabilities becoming pregnant increases, it [read the full story…]
Here at Elf Towers, we strive to bring you the best evidence from published studies, but from time to time, we have the opportunity to talk to you about research that is just getting underway. One such research project is being run by our friends at the Norah Fry Research Centre who are about to [read the full story…]
Making the decision to consent to medical treatment requires access to information, presented in clear and understandable ways. There is evidence that that people with learning disabilities do not always understand information about medications they are prescribed, for example from the medication matters project carried out at the Norah Fry centre which produced a series of [read the full story…]
The tag cloud on the Learning Disabilities Elf blog shows quite clearly that challenging behaviour is the topic we post about most, which reflects the ratio in published studies. Challenging behaviour can have a major impact on the safety of the person, people they live with or people who support them and is a major [read the full story…]
Last week we posted about a study looking at end of life are for people with learning disabilities through the experiences of the staff supporting them. This week, we would like to draw your attention to a new film that has been produced by CHANGE for Dying Matters and the National End of Life Care [read the full story…]
Attending court can be a confusing and sometimes frightening process and this can be exacerbated if you have a learning disability. This easy read leaflet has been produced by HM Courts & Tribunals Service and the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust learning disability staff to explain the magistrates’ court process to people with [read the full story…]
Bowel Cancer UK estimates that over 40,000 men and women are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK every year, making it the third most common cancer. It is the second biggest killer in Scotland where there is a higher incidence rate of bowel cancer than many other countries in the Western world. They estimate [read the full story…]
