The keys to life - Improving Quality of Life for People with Learning Disabilities EASY READ version

Independent living

Independent living is about disabled people of all ages having the same choice and control in their lives as other people. It also means having the right help and support to take part in the community.

What are our recommendations on independent living?

We will look at and develop day opportunities. We will make sure that they are person-centred and have real value for people with learning disabilities. We will do this by June 2018.

To achieve this we will work with:

• Local authorities
• The third sector (organisations like charities and voluntary organisations)
• People with learning disabilities and carers

We will review local housing strategies. Local housing strategies look at the need and demand for housing in local authorities.

We want to find good examples that meet the needs of people with learning disabilities. We also want to find out where we need to get better.

We will make suggestions for change. We will write down a list of resources that will help to make the changes. This will be put into local housing strategies. We will do this by June 2014.

The local housing strategies should show that the views of people with learning disabilities and their carers have been listened to.

It should show how all housing organisations are working to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

We will look at the role of Local Area Co-ordinators. We want to see how they are helping to promote independent living.

We will make a decision by June 2014 about how many more Local Area Co-ordinators we need to promote independent living.

Advocacy can help people with learning disabilities say what they think. We want to improve advocacy. We want more people to use it.

We will make an action plan for this. To help us do this we will work with:

• The Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance
• PAMIS
• The Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability