The Trust is celebrating Learning Disability Week by asking ‘can you see me?’

Service User Champions and the Trust are celebrating Learning Disability Week 2024, urging colleagues and the public to ensure that everyone with a learning disability feels seen, heard and valued.

We spoke to Anthony Dunn from Citizen Checkers and Sam Edwards from our Adult Learning Disability Community Team about this year’s theme, ‘can you see me?’

Citizen Checkers works with services to help create a fairer, safer and better society. This includes Anthony, who supports patients with learning difficulties in hospitals. He tells us how vital it is to encourage leadership from people with lived experience:

“I think people with learning disabilities have more to say. We know each other. We know how to communicate with each other. I think professionals need to learn to understand people with disabilities.

“It’s very important that people there listen to people with disabilities. We have the power. We have the power to speak. We are champions. We need to celebrate around Learning Disability Week.

“I’m talking to everyone in my county of Cornwall. Children with learning difficulties and also adults with learning difficulties. We need to celebrate 2024.”

Sam Edwards is a Consultant Nurse with our community team for adults with learning disabilities. He sees firsthand how working with mentors with lived experience can make a difference.

“Some really important steps have been taken. For example, the ongoing Oliver McGowan course. This is a great chance for people to really stop and think about the needs of people with learning disabilities and people with autism. Let’s think about how maybe we need to do things differently for that group of people to make sure they’re included and their needs are met.

“Having teams of people like Anthony, CHAMPs and Citizen Checkers working and visible within our services is really important, but we need to do more. Learning disabilities are the responsibility of the whole staff, the whole community and the whole society. not just the learning disability team who should be meeting these needs.

“Someone with a learning disability could access any of our health services or any of our general services. They use our transport system, they use our shops, they use our banks. It is very important that there is greater awareness. what are the needs of people with learning disabilities and how do they have the right to be included, just like the rest of us.”

The Trust is involved in a range of activities to support people with learning disabilities. Our adult learning disability service has recently become the first community team in the UK to be awarded QNLD (Quality Network for Learning Disabilities) status. Read more about QNLD.

We also celebrate the work of our research teams, including the Cornwall Intellectual Disability Equitable Research Team (CIDER). Read more about CIDR.