The people we support may have physical disabilities, sensory impairments, challenging behaviours, or other chronic health conditions, in addition to their learning disability.

We feel these specific needs should not be a barrier to someone leading the life they want, with the same rights and choices as everyone else.

We offer the same person-centred approach to everyone we support, carefully matching people with staff who have the right expertise in supporting the person’s extra health needs or specific behaviours.

For some people, specific techniques are needed within support methods. Our staff are trained to offer this support. We use intensive interaction with non-verbal individuals to help them communicate, drawing on the advice of our in-house clinical psychologist. We have a long history of supporting people who have autism, like Reece.

Our specialist services

Through our specialist services, we aim to ensure everyone is fully supported. These services include:

• Supporting people who have challenging behaviours – dignity and quality of life is key to Affinity Trust’s support and we understand that often a person can behave in a challenging way because they are frustrated and unable to communicate their needs and wishes to others. Once they have dedicated support teams, and we work with them to start to understand the root of this behaviour, we find that challenging behaviour reduces substantially, and often disappears altogether.

• Supporting people with additional disabilities – such as sensory impairments, chronic health conditions like diabetes or dementia, or those who are wheelchair users – like Anita.

• Supporting people with mental health problems, including those who self-harm.

• Supporting people who have been involved with the criminal justice system.

• Transition services – short-term accommodation placements which can provide stability for those between long-term support solutions. This can include stepping stone accommodation, personal assessment and skills development.

• Personal budget support (self-directed support in Scotland) – where the person supported has money to pay for a support plan and we help to identify what type of support is required, when and how.

Contact us to find out more about our specialist support services.