Blog by Louise Keevil, founding trustee and Acting CEO of Where I Want to Live
Chapter 1 of Good Lives: Building Change Together is about ‘A Home’.
And the importance of everyone having a choice about where they live and who they live with.
You may know that at Where I Want to Live we share this vision of a country where adults with learning disabilities have choice about where and how they live.
We are taking steps towards this and the first thing we are doing is creating a toolkit that lots of people, who are aged between 18 and 35 years, can use.
The toolkit starts by taking us back to basics and finding out what people actually want.
It will help people to think about what they want and encourage them to talk to other people about it.
It will eventually offer advice and suggestions about the options.
Firstly though we wanted to prove that it is possible to create a toolkit that is useful.
This is definitely about helping people with learning disabilities.
However, we know that there are other people who have an important supporting role, so we want to make sure the toolkit is useful for them too.
With help from lots of people who have lived experience and who provide support we created the first draft of the toolkit for trials.
Now to the good news…. the trial has finished, and we have some very useful findings.
Here are some of the things we learnt:
Everybody thinks the toolkit is a good idea and that it will help people think about their future.
People think it feels a bit like a game and most people like that.
People think the questions are good.
People have different opinions about whether they like symbols or photographs or videos. They would like to choose whichever one they like best.
People found it easy to use but some think there are too many words.
People under 18 years old and over 35 years old would like to be able to use the toolkit too.
There is a difference in the way that family members and professionals provide help, and this is important, so the notes should be clear.
Next steps…
We have some changes to make so now we will look at our paperwork and change our plans.
We are proud of the progress we have made with valuable input from people with learning disabilities, families, and professionals across England and thank all for making this possible.
If you would like to get involved or have contacts who would be interested, please get in touch and as always… spread the word!
Find out more on our website: Where I Want to Live or email me on: Info@whereiwanttolive.co.uk.
