non-medical treatments

On 31/10/19, we facilitated a #LDTchat on people with learning disabilities being excluded from autism research. Catch up on what was discussed here.

A group of Loughborough University academics have been awarded funding to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as the Amazon Echo, help people with disabilities live independently and explore how they may shape the future of social care.

The Care Quality Commission has pledged to review restrictive interventions (restraint, prolonged seclusion, and segregation) in a variety of settings.

Recent research shows that therapeutic horse riding has many benefits for autistic children: from a reduction in hyperactivity, to an improvement in word fluency. 

Explores whether CBT can be adapted and used effectively for people with learning disabilities. 

New mothers with learning disabilities have benefitted from a pilot programme that helped them learn to care for and interact with their babies, an evaluation has found.

The Law Society has published a new practical guide on the law on deprivation of liberty for lawyers and health and social care professionals.

An report on an investigation into the effectiveness and costs of parent-training interventions. [02-Apr-2012]

A Department of Health report that provides examples of services that improve the health and lives of people with learning disabilities. [02-Dec-2013]

A guide to auditing and improving mental health services so that they are effective in supporting people with autism and people with learning disabilities. [02-Dec-2013]

A consultation from the Scottish Government. [06-Jan-2014]

This is a toolkit created for Disabled Peoples User Led Organisations (DPULOs), other small organisations and charities. It aims to provide guidance to help organisations find and use data with confidence to support their work by, for example, the better targeting of services and/or resources to meet the needs of disabled people.
There are three main chapters to the document:
Chapter 1 describes what data is and how data can be used (for example, to understand a problem) to help answer questions about what is happening and why. This chapter also explains different types of data and where they come from.
Chapter 2 shows what data is available across eight key themes (disability, education, employment, income, health and wellbeing, transport, housing and other disability data), where it can be found and gives examples of use.
Chapter 3 shows how data can be used and what information it can reveal. This section also explains some of the problems that can happen when using data incorrectly, and some of the ‘rules’ that need to be obeyed.
In addition there are a number of technical annexes.
 

From service user to citizen – where to next for people with learning disabilities? Alex McClimens and Darren Lee investigate:

To begin, here’s a quick quiz. What links the following cities: Havana, 1959; Paris, 1789; Saigon, 1975; Prague, 1968? They were all sites of revolutionary uprisings where the incumbent leadership was overthrown by a mix of military and people power. Such things don’t just happen in foreign countries as we in the UK too have had our share of revolutionary unrest, although this happened a long time ago.

The thread that links these acts of rebellion was that the majority of the population felt that their political leaders were ignoring the rights of the ordinary citizen. In established Western democracies this situation is now managed by the electoral system that gives citizens the right to vote political parties in or out of government.

Liaison and diversion and forensic learning disability services can make a big difference to whether a person offends again – but services are patchy across the country and improvement is needed. Editor Dan Parton reports:
When Home Secretary Theresa May delivered a speech in July at an event hosted by the Care not Custody Coalition, she reaffirmed the government’s commitment to liaison and diversion services in the criminal justice system for people with mental health issues or learning disabilities. This, allied to £25 million in funding for liaison and diversion that was announced in January, points to a brighter future for the services.
Liaison and diversion – which seeks to identify, provide support for and, where appropriate, divert people with mental ill health or learning disabilities away from criminal justice settings such as police stations and magistrates’ courts and into specialist treatment or social care services – has had political support for some years, going back to the previous Labour administration. Yet progress in developing a national service has been frustratingly slow.

The report of a serious case review into the abuse of adults at a day service provided by Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH) for vulnerable individuals with profound and multiple disabilities. [28-Jul-2014]