91Èȱ¬

Last week I attended Learning Disability Today at London's Business Design Centre.

Celebrating its ten year anniversary, the annual one day event includes seminars, stands and interactive zones, all of particular interest to people with a learning disability, their families, friends and those who support them.

As I wandered through the exhibition hall, I noted a plethora of organisations and charities providing a similar mix of accommodation, support, care and training. It was the person centred projects which grabbed most of my attention, though.

I dropped in on an organisation which facilitates people with learning disabilities to run projects in their communities. The most well-known of their projects is probably The Bubble Club in Shoreditch. This is a club night run by and for people with learning disabilities. You can watch an Ouch! video about it here.

Further down the rows of stands, I met Carousel, a Brighton based arts organisation. Carousel have many strings to their bow, including the Oska Bright film festival and a number of LD lead bands including Beat Express.

I hadn't previously been aware of Carousel's radio show and podcast. Produced by 'learnies', the show is available online and goes out once a month on Radio Reverb, a community station in Brighton. It focuses mostly on music by learning disabled people but includes talk too.

Ryan, one of the presenters, was recording a report at the exhibition. This will be available to hear on their next broadcast.

As I continued my journey, I had the opportunity to play beautiful music by waving my arms about, using a sound beam.

Kath from the Carers With Learning Disabilities Network took time to explain to me that, because people with conditions like Down's Syndrome are living longer, and often remaining in the family home, there is inevitably an ever-growing number of learning disabled carers out there looking after parents and elderly family members. The network aims to support them.

Sticking with minority LD groups, I ran into an old friend of Ouch! Steve Palmer - former studio manager of our podcast - who now works for The Social Care Institute for Excellence. He urged me to watch a film they've just produced for Social Care TV about Richard, a gay man with a learning disability. Watch it

As everyone was packing away their posters and pamphlets, I came across a company who help people with learning disabilities manage their money and open bank accounts, and another which specialises in obtaining mortgages for people with disabilities. Two services I never knew existed.

There were loads of interesting things to do and see and plenty of the stands were run or co-run by learnies. Many of the attendees were service users as well and there were a range of interesting ways to get involved and to access useful information.