Help for people with a Learning Disability
What help is available?
The help, support and advice available will
depend on the needs of the individual and their
carer(s). If you get in touch with the Council we will assess
your needs and discuss with you what help can be offered.
The Council wants to give as much choice as
possible to people about the way they are supported. Consequently
it is moving towards more use of personal budgets. This means
giving money directly to individuals and families so that they can
buy the care and support that they need and want. For more
information see the Direct Payments and
Empower Card pages.
However, in addition to this, the Council still
has many directly provided services for people with learning
disabilities. These services are part of Care4CE, the Council's range of care and
support provision. These include day services, supported
employment, long term accommodation, family based care, and short
stay or respite care. Care4CE
also provides a Reablement service
which aims to enable people to learn the skills that they need to
live more independently. In some cases Assistive Technology (sometimes called Telecare) can help people to live more
independently by using a range of electronic devices that can check
if someone needs help and automatically call assistance if
necessary.
The Council also has professionals who can assess
specific areas of need and give advice and information. These
include Social Workers, Social Care Assessors, Supported Employment
staff, and Occupational Therapists. These all work in 4 Local
Independent Living Teams (LILTs) that are based in Macclesfield,
Wilmslow, Congleton and Crewe.
How to get help
To get in touch with your local team see
contact the Social
Care Team page. For more information see the
How do I get help? page.
For Health needs for people with learning
disabilities either get in touch with your family doctor, or the
local specialist Health Trust for people with learning
disabilities, Cheshire and Wirral
Partnership NHS Trust
For information about a wide range of learning
disability issues see our learning disability Useful Links page.
Advocacy
You might need someone to speak on your behalf,
to make sure that you get your rights, to make sure that your views
are properly heard, and to advise you on how to deal with
services. This kind of person is called an advocate. An
advocate could be anyone that you choose, but there are people
called Citizen Advocates who are separate from the Council and
specialise in speaking up on behalf of people with learning
disabilities. The 2 main agencies that do this in Cheshire East
are:
In addition Macclesfield has a Self-Advocacy
organisation where people with learning disabilities support each
other to speak up on their own behalf. This is called
Speaking Up Speaking Out.
