News
Aspirations For Life is a campaign funded by the Department for Education as part of the Valuing Employment Now strategy. The campaign is lead by Paradigm with Pure Innovations.
Paradigm is one of the country’s leading consultancy training and development agencies in the field of disability.
The campaign will focus on six pilot areas and looks to raise aspirations and expectations for children and young people with learning disabilities; with a particular focus on employment.
It will develop new ways of working with children and young people with learning disabilities, their families, and the range of professionals involved in their lives.
- Inspiring belief in what people with learning disabilities can do.
- Challenging perceptions, providing positive role models to remove negative stereotypes.
- Promoting a desire to work.
- Listening to what young people want, recognising their individual skills and abilities.
- Making support professionals aware of the impact they can have by taking positive measures.
- Increasing partnership work, disseminating shared good practice.
- Identifying Employment Champions for each geographical area.
- Feeding back to government.
- Identifying ways to keep the momentum going once the campaign is over. (We are funded until March 2011.)
Visit the new website www.aspirationsforlife.org.uk to find out more and post your comments.
Rachel Roberts Newton, contact for the Stockport pilot area, shares her thoughts on the project
"The most important thing about the Campaign is to inspire belief in what is possible for young people with Learning Disabilities to go on to achieve. Initially each site is mapping the current situation so that we can identify what is needed in each area. We will involve people locally and showcase examples where lives have been changed. Some sites including Stockport will run a Train the Trainer course this Summer to skill up a group of people with LD to support the delivery of the campaign and continue raising awareness afterwards. Many people with learning disabilities want to have job and families need access to a full range of services, support, advice and encouragement to make this happen. Unfortunately, some professionals do not always share the belief that Pure Innovations has in empowering individuals to meet their full potential. They have low aspirations and expectations and we need to understand why this is the case and feedback any gaps and what needs to change. We hope that by the end of the campaign we will have created a toolkit of resources that can be shared and used nationally. I am delighted to be leading the work in Stockport; (the home of Pure Innovations’ HQ) and be given the opportunity to inspire families and young people to consider what the future could look like for them..”
