– Families and friends (including family carer and support organisations)
– Paid supporters and partners (including individuals who work in social care, service providers, commissioners, universities, development agencies and others)
Individual members can be:
– a self advocate with a learning disability
– a family member or friend of someone with a learning disability
– someone who works with people with a learning disability
– an ally who wants to be part of our national movement
– your organisation is led by self-advocates and/or family members
– if your self-advocacy or family run organisation gets most of its income from delivering services rather than doing self advocacy and/or family voice support, then you will be part of the paid supporter category.
Do you want to join as a self advocacy or family carer group?
Joining as an organisational member of Learning Disability England
Learning Disability England is England’s only national movement where people with learning disabilities, families, friends and people in paid supporter roles come together on an equal basis.
That’s because we are stronger and louder together! Together we work towards people with learning disabilities having good lives with equal choices and opportunities as others.
Organisational membership is for any group, company, organisation, local authority, regional/national board or collection of people who wants to become part of the movement.
Self Advocacy and Friends and Family organisational membership bands are for groups where the majority of their income is about voice or representation only. These are groups that have a structure of their own, for example a constitution.
These leaflets tell you a bit more about why you might want to and what it means to join the membership as a support provider or a micro-provider.
How to choose your category
To join as an organisation/group, your membership cost depends on your size and turn over.
You can see the different categories below.
When you join the membership through this online form, you can add the code that best fits your organisation or group.
If you would like to discuss membership in more detail, please do contact the staff team by email at: info@LDEngland.org.uk or by phone on 0300 111 0444
Why join as an organisational member?
You will be joining England’s only organisation that brings everyone together: people with learning disabilities, families, and professionals.
You will get weekly information, news, new ideas, resources, and webinars, which will be useful to your colleagues and people you support.
You will be making a statement of support for a brave, national movement working with people with learning disabilities for change.
You can influence and inform campaigning work with partners, government and members.
You will gain an opportunity to join our network of spokespeople, raising the profile of issues you care about.
You will get access to a plethora of events, meetings and conferences that will be useful to people throughout your organisation or group.
You will have a say in what LDE does, being able to shape the movement for change.
You will get weekly information, news, ideas, resources and webinars which will be useful to your colleagues and people you support.
You can find solutions to problems and new ideas through facilitated co-production and quality and improvement tools and networks.
You will be helping your organisation’s mission by: supporting work or campaigns that you agree with, contributing to a wider benefit to your community of interest or beneficiaries, helping change and improve what you do.
You will be part of facilitated problem solving networks or debates on issues that face people and organisations including policy and practice changes e.g. Learning Disability England Members have worked together on challenging the misuse of DNAR notices and directly influenced the work on stopping them.
If your organisation is led by self-advocates and/or family members, you can join as a Self Advocacy or Family Carer Organisation.
If a self-advocacy or family run organisation gets most of its income from delivering services rather than doing self advocacy and/or family voice support, then it will be part of the paid supporter category.
We know that small groups and voice organisations come in different shapes and sizes.
So our membership fee structure from 1 December 2020 reflects this:
Turnover less than £200,000 a year:
£25 a year
Turnover in excess of £200,000 a year: £100 a year
Joining as an individual member of Learning Disability England
Learning Disability England is England’s only national movement where people with learning disabilities, families, friends and people in paid supporter roles come together as equal people.
That’s because we are stronger and louder together! Together we work towards people with learning disabilities having good lives with equal choices and opportunities as others.
Individual membership is for any individual person who has a learning disability, is a family member, a friend, in a Circle of Support or is a professional working in this area.
Joining LDE means you can give your opinions and get your voice heard. We are involved in many consultations, debates and policy work where your voice is important and people will listen to you.
These leaflets tell you a bit more about why you might want to and what it means to join the membership as a self-advocate or family member.
Why should I join?
You will be joining a group of people who also want people with learning disabilities to live good lives.
It is a way of telling people that you support a national movement working with people with learning disabilities for change to happen.
You can influence and be part of campaigning work with partners, government and members.
You will get good information, solutions to problems and new ideas from different meetings, conferences, webinars and resources.
You will be able to join our group of spokespeople, talking about the important things you care about.
How do I join?
Individual Membership (that’s Membership for 1 person) is only £12 a year.
If you don’t want to join online, you can download a Membership form and return it to us by post.
If you are an organisation or group run by self – advocates or family carers you can join as an organisation.
If you would like to talk this through with us, you can call on 0300 111 0444 or email us at: info@LDEngland.org.uk.
A bit of history
Watch the video to listen to Gary Bourlet, now one of the Membership and Engagement Leads, talk about how he helped to set up Learning Disability England.
Learning Disability England was founded in 2016.
It is a registered charity.
For a long time people with learning disabilities have not been seen or treated as equals in society.
Self-advocate Gary Bourlet tried to change this by setting up a national self-advocacy organisation called People First England.
He was supported by Housing & Support Alliance, a charity promoting good support and housing for people with learning disabilities.
But both People First England and Housing & Support Alliance wanted to do more.
They wanted to do something new.
They could see change wasn’t happening fast enough because the learning disability sector was fragmented.
People weren’t working together.
Gary and the Housing and Support Alliance brought some like minded people together to create a movement for change.
These self-advocates, families and organisations worked with Gary and the Housing and Support Alliance to build Learning Disability England.
They made this new organisation a membership organisation where people signed up to the values.
Every member would be equal, whether it was a big support provider or a self advocate, with one vote each for decisions and elections.
The Founding Members are the organisations that helped build Learning Disability England.
We are very grateful for all their support, time and funding.
Learning Disability England’s Founding Members are:
Advance Aldingbourne Trust Avenues Trust BILD Brampton Brandon Trust Bromford Centre for Welfare Reform Certitude CHANGE Choice Support CMG Connect In The North Dimensions Essex County Council Essex Family Carers Network Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities Hft Inclusion North Kent County Council KeyRing MacIntyre mcch NDTi Paradigm Progress Housing Reside Housing Respond Swanton Care Three Cs United Response
Today the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have published their report about the review of ‘do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ (DNAR)decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
