3 Summary of the course
You have covered a lot of ground in this course! The topics relevant to the future care of your family member you have explored have ranged from the planning required as your family member grows older to the core principles and skills of advocating effectively for yourself and your family member with learning disabilities as they grow older and the importance of looking after yourself. You have also had the chance to hear from those who took part in the research underpinning this course, members of our panel of experts and have been provided with different sources of information.
Whether you are a parent caring for a son or daughter who has a learning disability, or you care for a sibling with a learning disability, hopefully you now feel better equipped in terms of the understanding, knowledge information, skills, resources, contacts, sources of help you need to cope and navigate the system as they grow older.
We wish you every success.
Useful resources
The following is a list of the resources which have been used throughout this course:
- Planning for the Future Checklist for families [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
- Planning Ahead cards
- Supporting older people with learning disabilities and their families
- Exploring learning disabilities: supporting belonging
- mysafe home
- hft virtual smarthouse
- Together Matters: resources and information
- mencap: advice and support
- Welfare Rights
- Being Heard: a self-advocacy guide for carers
- youknow.org
- hft
- Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
For self-care advice:
- Nutrition
- Social stimulation
- Cognitive stimulation
- Physical activity for carers
- Physical activity for health and wellbeing in the caring role
- Midlife MOT: wealth, work and wellbeing (especially the wellbeing audit section)
Organisations such as Carers UK and Carers Trust are other sources of ideas and information.