A guide to services for adults with learning disabilities

Nottingham City Council’s Community Learning Disability Teams work with people with learning disabilities. This page is about the help you can get from us.

What is a learning disability?

A learning disability can happen when you are born or because of an illness or injury when you are young.  This means that learning, remembering and doing everyday things may be difficult without extra help.  People with a learning disability may also have difficulty in communicating.

Who can get help?

If you have a moderate or severe learning disability and you live in the city of Nottingham, you can get help from us.  If you have a mild learning disability and another serious problem such as epilepsy you can also get help from us.

We also provide help for carers, such as family and friends, who look after people with learning disabilities.

What help can I get?

1) You can get help with where you live

There are different options for where you choose to live:

• in your own house or flat
• with your family
• with another family – this is called the Adult Placement Scheme
• in a residential care home.

We will help find the right place for you.

Wherever you live, we can help you with:

• managing your money and your bills
• looking after yourself and staying well.

2) You can get help to do things you like to do

We can help you to find things to do during the day.  This could be:

• going to a day service
• going to college.  You could do training for a job.  Or you could learn skills to help you look after yourself, like cooking, keeping clean and managing your money.
• getting a job – either paid work or voluntary work
• doing leisure activities such as hobbies or seeing friends or even going on holiday.

3) You can get help to stay healthy

We work closely with the Health Service.  We can help if you need:

• To register with a GP
• Support from a community nurse
• Physiotherapy
• Speech and language therapy
• Advice on healthy eating
• Advice about continence.

Your mental health is also very important.  We can find help if you need it.

4) You can get help to plan for the future

When a child becomes an adult there are lots of changes to his or her life.  We have workers to help at this time.  We call this our ‘transitions service’.

We can help you make a plan for your life.  The plan is about what you need and what you want.  We call this your ‘person centred plan’.

We can help carers think about what will happen to the person they care for when they are older.

5) You can get someone to speak on your behalf.

We can arrange for you to have someone to speak on your behalf.  We call this person an ‘advocate’.  The advocate will build up a relationship with you so that they understand what you want and need, and can tell other people for you.

Help for carers and families

Families of people with a learning disability often need help for themselves.  We can help with:

• short breaks
• help for older carers
• carers assessments
• information and help with benefits.

For more information about the services we provide for carers, please visit our pages on information for carers, email carersservices@nottinghamcity.gov.uk, or telephone 0115 915 1298.

How do I get help?

To get help, contact your local Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT) - contact details below.  You can do this yourself or get somebody to help you.

The kind of help we can give depends on your needs.  We want you lead a full and active life within your community, and to support you to build friendships and do activities.

In order to give you the best help, we need to find out more about you.  We need to collect information, discuss this with you and agree on what services we can offer.  This is called an assessment.  Sometimes, with your permission, we may ask other people for information about you, such as your GP or your family.

How much do I pay?

There is no charge for an assessment.  However, you may have to pay for some of our services.  How much you pay depends on your income and money.  We will talk about this as part of your assessment so you will know what, if anything, you have to pay.

What if I am unhappy with the help I get?

If you are not happy with the help you get, we want to know.  You can tell any of our staff or managers.  They will try to sort out any problems.

If you are still not happy, you can complain to:

Representations and Complaints
Melrose House
Waverley Street
Nottingham
NG7 4HF

Tel: 0115 915 0310
Fax: 0115 979 1906
Email: socialcarecomplaints@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Contact us

To get help, contact your nearest Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT):

Maureen Downes (Manager)
North CLDT
The Denewood Centre
Denewood Crescent
Bilborough
Nottingham
NG8 3DH
Tel: 9159616

June Fay (Manager)
East CLDT
43a Gregory Boulevard
Hyson Green
Nottingham
NG7 6BE
Tel: 9152455

Millie Campbell (Manager)
South CLDT
Clifton Cornerstone Building
Southchurch Drive
Clifton
Nottingham
NG11 8EW
Tel: 8786270

Emergencies:

If the CLDT offices are closed you can contact the Emergency Duty Team on 0115 915 9299.