MLAs to debate Day Services: Menap - Ensure real choice and control over day services

In advance of today’s (2 December) Assembly debate on day services, Mencap in Northern Ireland is calling on MLAs to ensure that people with a learning disability have real choice and control over what they do during the day.

Welcoming today’s motion and the amendment on the need for the necessary financial arrangements are made available, Maureen Piggot, Mencap’s director in Northern Ireland said, “Day services have the enormous potential to enable people with a learning disability to be as independent as possible, to develop new skills, enjoy other opportunities, such as employment or volunteering and to develop and sustain friendships.

“Like all of us, people with a learning disability want different things in life, have different aspirations and need different levels of support to achieve them. Day services play a critical role in meeting the needs of people with a learning disability and their families. But as today’s motion states, ‘more must be done to promote choice and independence for individuals’ and this must mean putting people and their needs first.

“Having a real choice means that people are fully involved in the decisions about how they spend their time. This will look different for each person and may include opportunities to work, attend college, be part of work skills training, attend drop in or day centres, or pursue particular leisure interests. It shouldn’t be that an individual can’t access day opportunities because they attend a day centre.

“For people with a learning disability to live the lives they want and to fulfil the government’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is essential that departments not only work together but co-operate fully to monitor, plan, develop and fund provision which results in full and meaningful day opportunities for people with a learning disability across Northern Ireland,” she said.

  • Information on today's motion: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Assembly-Business/Marshalled-list-of-Amendments/02-December-2013/
  • Find out how you can take part in the current consultation on a regional model for day opportunities: http://bit.ly/17UtZv3
  • Tells us about your experiences of day opportunities by taking our survey on Survey Monkey:  http://svy.mk/1k15EsJ survey



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