Expertise 

People with learning disabilities want what many of us want: a job, a relationship and a home. But they have a lot less chance of achieving these things by themselves. We’re changing that.

Providing advice and activities

We help people reach their personal goals by ensuring they take advantage of all the services that will be of benefit to them. For example, someone might come to us for after school club and travel training. And then later become part of one of our employment projects. Always with the aim of making each person as independent as possible.

6,000 people a year get help from Ealing Advice Service.
500 people with learning disabilities use our services every year.

Training for independent travel

Between 2015 and 2021 we successfully trained over 273 young people to become independent travellers in Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon and Slough. We believe this is a service that should be available to all young people with special educational needs.

We have also worked with Slough Council, running a series of workshops that enabled professionals to become travel ambassadors, so that they could help their customers/clients to gain more confidence travelling.

Disability awareness days

We’ve run a number of disability awareness days for bus drivers in West London. The aim is to enable the drivers to identify a person with learning disability and understand the difficulties they face. They meet some of our travel training students and get an understanding of how to help passengers with learning disabilities and make them feel at ease. The disability awareness days are also open to general public.

Becoming an adult

The transition from young person to adult can be especially difficult if you have a learning disability. Our expertise come from:

• Specialist knowledge from listening to and working directly with young people and their families.
• Knowing the law and best practice on supporting them.
• Working in partnerships with schools, professionals, the local authority to better support them.

We’ve advised Ealing Council on the guidance they need and produced communications to support the young adults, their families and professionals.

Employment

An average of 75% of the young people who graduate each year from our Project Search Supported Internship gain full-time paid employment.

Roles secured are varied and include:

• Concierge and commis chef at The Hilton T5.
• Office junior in event management at The Specialist Company.
• Zone cleaner with ISS UK, one of the largest facilities service companies globally.
• Customer service apprentice at Arvato CRM Solutions UK.
• School dinner assistant employed by Harrisons Catering.
• Food & Beverage Assistant at De Vere Hotel Windsor.