We are pleased to tell you that Voice for All has not only joined the new National ‘Supported Loving’ Campaign but we have been featured on Facebook and Twitter, and our easy read booklets ‘Love, Sex and Relationships’ and ‘How best to support me with Friendships and Relationships’ have been shared nationally and recognised as ‘Best Practice’.
We have also been invited by Dr Claire Bates (National Campaign Lead, Choice Support, London) to feature in a video and to come and give a presentation to the National Supported Loving Campaign Meeting in Birmingham in September.
For people with learning disabilities finding love is often more than just chemistry – it can come down to getting the right support from your staff.
Research shows that, like everyone else, people with learning disabilities want a loving relationship with a partner. Yet in the UK just 3% of people with learning disabilities live as part of a couple, compared to 70% of the general population.
Supported Loving is a social media campaign which aims to:
· highlight the importance of good support in helping people with learning disabilities develop and maintain loving relationships
· identify what constitutes good and poor support in relationships.
The campaign will run for six months, starting in February 2017 and will include:
· blogs from various contributors on the topic of good support in relationships
· sharing stories in words, pictures and films, of good and bad support on Twitter and Facebook.
We believe people with learning disabilities have the right to fall in love and have relationships if they want to, and we recognise our responsibility to provide support that helps make this happen. But it’s challenging, because although relationships can be wonderful, enriching and life-enhancing, they are also sometimes difficult, painful and even abusive.
Supported Loving isn’t about glib answers to simple issues – it’s about having an open discussion about how to provide good support in complex situations. Let’s help make love happen for people with learning disabilities.
Please see the links below for more information;
Supported Loving Campaign Information
