Learning Disability

The original National Development Team (NDT) started its life in the 1970’s as part of government, aiming to close the old mental handicap institutions. Since, then, the organisation has always been at the forefront of the progressive learning disability agenda. For example, we took the lead in bringing supported living and supported employment to the UK in the early 1990’s.

Nowadays, we continue to press for radical action that will help people to live lives as equal citizens. Whilst supporting much of the current policy in all part of the United Kingdom, we also believe there is a need to keep on challenging its boundaries and ensure that equal citizenship is at the heart of its delivery as well as the words of intent.

Other parts of the website describe our learning disability work in full – including policy advice, development consultancy, training and research and evaluation. Some specific current learning disability NDTi initiatives are:

The Housing and Social Inclusion Project
Identifying what works in terms of using the move from residential care to real tenancies in terms of promoting community inclusion. Click here to read more

A specific learning disability and employment initiative, including strategies for reviewing the effectiveness of current investment in employment programmes and redirecting resources to achieve greater outcomes i.e. people in paid work

A joint initiative with HSA around the transition to adulthood and the use of person centred approaches

Local Services for Local People
An initiative with the Department of Health to develop guidance for Commissioners in how to commission services for people who challenge in line with the Mansell Report. Click here to read more

Improving Health and Lives
This is the new Public Health Observatory for people with learning disabilities. We are partners with the North East PHO and University of Lancaster – working to help organisations make better use of information and evidence as they commission and deliver services. For more information, click here.

To find out more about our work on Learning Disability, please see the links below. For more information contact Bill Love.

Learning Disability flyer

Learning Disability flyer (easier to read version)