Description
In 2017, the Department of Health reported that there are 930,000 adults with learning disabilities in England of whom 700,000 live in the community and are described as ‘accessing low level support’ (DoH, 2017:6). Adults with learning disabilities who ‘access low level support’ are people who may be in receipt of welfare benefits in relation to their learning disability, and/or may be included on their general practitioner’s learning disability register (DoH, 2017). As children and young people, they may also have been classified as having special educational needs (SEND) related to learning disability (Hatton, 2015). However, they are currently either not known to local authority learning disability services or have been assessed by those services as not having met the thresholds for social care as set out in The Care Act, 2014 (HMSO, 2014). Examples of ‘low level support’ include support with household finance and management; support with health care; support for personal care; shopping; socialising; work and hobbies. This support is often provided by family members and friends; third sector organisations, such as charities, self-advocacy groups of people with learning disabilities and faith based organisations, as well as support from local authority funded local area coordinators (Lunt and Bainbridge, 2019). Little is known about this group of people with learning disabilities who are on the margins of care and the support they receive (e.g.: Quilgars, 2020). This paper focuses on the experiences of people with learning disabilities who ‘access low level support’ and, crucially, how that support is resourced, drawing on data from interviews to create weekly time diaries to carry out a cost replacement analysis (Ces, 2019), as part of an NIHR-funded project (NIHR204234).| Period | 3 Sept 2024 |
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| Event title | Disability Studies Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Leeds, United KingdomShow on map |