Getting A life is a project for young people with severe learning disabilities. It is about raising aspirations, making changes to the system and creating a clear path to paid employment.

What will the project do?

The main aims for the project are:

• To find and share new ways of working at each site so that young people with learning disabilities can leave school, get paid employment and have equal life opportunities

• To explore how to use person centred planning to bring together the assessment and funding streams from four different national and local policy areas:


1. Connexions, LSC and post 16 education
2. Job Centre Plus (including New Deal and Access to Work)
3. Adult social care assessment and day service funding
4. Bringing these processes together will help young people use public resources in different ways to get the outcomes they want.

• To inform government about what local areas can achieve and what needs to change at a regional, national and/or policy level.

Getting a Life will establish a learning community, to bring together the people who are developing innovative approaches to enable young people who have learning disabilities to get employment and lead full and valued lives.

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Who is involved in the project?

Four government departments are supporting the project: Department of Work and Pensions Department for Children Schools and Families Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Department of Health It also receives support from the Office of Disability Issues. Getting A life is part of the wider cross government employment strategies called ”Working towards Independence”, “Valuing People Now” and “Valuing Employment Now” which are all about improving life for people with learning disabilities.

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Who runs the project?

The programme has two managers who work with all of the regional sites and with all of the government departments involved.

Nicola Gitsham Nicola.gitsham@dh.gsi.gov.uk	Linda Jordan Linda.jordan@dh.gsi.gov.uk
There is also a programme officer: Clare Rayner Clare.rayner@dh.gsi.gov.uk

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Development Programme

A development programme is in place for each of the areas around the country that are involved in Getting a Life.  The programme includes support on these areas:

• Young people’s leadership
• Family leadership
• Using an Inclusion Web
• Person Centred Reviews
• Person Centred Assessment
• Support for Employment
• Person Centred Approaches in post-16 settings
• How to get from person-centred reviews to strategic-level change

Young people’s leadership
The young people’s leadership programme will run from February 2009 to March 2011 and will support the young people to:

• Understand the Getting a Life programme
• Know what’s positive and possible for young people with learning disabilities to achieve
• Think about their own lives and what kind of support they need to get the lives they want

During the sessions, the young people involved in Getting a Life can learn about:

• Jobs
• Housing
• What support is out there to help them build friendships, relationships and good social lives
• Advocacy
• Person centred planning and support planning
• Self-directed support and individual budgets

Young people will find out how to influence the system to get the outcomes they want, and will build local capacity to support the young people involved in Getting a Life.  The development programme will consist of approximately ten sessions funded and provided by the Getting a Life programme.

Family Leadership
The family leadership programme will run from February 2009 to March 2011 and will support the families of the young people involved in Getting a Life to:

• Understand the Getting a Life programme
• Know what’s positive and possible for young people with learning disabilities to achieve
• Think about their children’s lives and the support they think they will need to get the lives they want

During the sessions, families will learn about jobs, housing and the support young people can get to help them have friends, relationships, and good social lives.  They can learn how to influence the system, and how to use:

• Advocacy
• Person-centred planning and support planning
• Self-directed support and individual budgets

The family leadership development programme will consist of around ten sessions funded and provided by the Getting a Life programme.

Inclusion Web
A one-day training session on using the inclusion web in conjunction with person-centred transition planning and evaluation will take place at each area involved in Getting a Life.  Getting a Life sites can use the web with the young people involved in the programme, supporting them to develop wider community participation as well as enabling the sites to evaluate the outcomes of the programme.

The inclusion web enables individuals to define the significant people and places in their life. Rather than relying on standardisation, it recognises that each person is part of a complex community.

The inclusion web develops a Rich Picture of a person’s life, combining qualitative, quantitative and graphic aspects into something that can be read at a glance.  It promotes individual planning, encouraging the person to make their own plans and to review changes.

Person Centred Reviews

Training sessions for people planning to carry out person-centred reviews have been happening around the country since 2005, and many different types of people have taken part.  They included care managers, teachers, teaching assistants and learning support assistants, social workers, health professionals, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs), parents, Connexions workers others who are interested in facilitating reviews as part of the transition process for young people.

A four-day training course, with support from a course trainer to put the learning into practice, was redesigned specifically for the Getting a Life programme, for people who will facilitate person-centred transition reviews for young people involved in the Getting A Life programme.  The training covers both important to/ important for reviews for young people in year nine and citizenship reviews for young people in year 10.

Person Centred Assessment
A two-day workshop takes place for those carrying out assessments with young people in the Getting a Life programme.  The course explores how assessments can contribute to young people’s person centred transition plans and support them to get the lives they want, and how person-centred approaches can influence assessment.

Person Centred Approaches in post-16 settings
In each area of the country involved in Getting a Life, a special course provides training for people in post-16 settings to support young people.  The training focuses on practical support to use person-centred thinking tools and approaches in the post-16 learning context.

Areas covered in the training include:

• How to run two types of person centred reviews (important to/for reviews and working/not working reviews) and an introduction to the citizenship review

• Supporting students to gather person-centred information that contributes to person-centred plans, individual learning plans and person-centred reviews
• How person-centred approaches can be embedded in the curriculum
• Identifying ways in which person-centred approaches and tools can be used to underpin partnership work with other organisations

Support for Employment
The Getting a Life programme is providing support for each of the sites to develop a pathway to employment for young people with learning disabilities.
This programme will help each local area to deliver customised supported employment.

From person-centred reviews to strategic change
This is a one-day training session in how to use the information gathered from each of the young people involved in the Getting a Life programme to inform local strategic plans and ultimately change systems so that barriers to employment and full lives are removed.

The information will be used to evaluate the Getting a Life programme locally, regionally and nationally.

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website © Getting A Life 2009