E D I T O R I A L

Dorothy Atkinson and Jan Walmsley

The ‘In Conversation’ piece in this issue features an interview

with Rob Grieg, the director of the new national implemen-

tation support team, or task force, set up to deliver the vision

set out in the White Paper, Valuing People (OH 2001). This is a

very topical and timely interview, in which the new director

emphasizes the importance of involving people with learn-

ing disabilities centrally in implementing the vision. He also

stresses the need for services to work together across the old

health and social care divide, and to find ways of supporting

people with learning disabilities to access mainstream ser-

vices, facilities and finances. Will there be more money to

support these changes? Rob Grieg suggests that extra funds

will come only when learning disability services get better at

making their case – at explaining the needs of people, what

works and what does not work. The journal has an important

part to play in this process.

The papers in this issue take up those practical points of

what works. Equally important though is the fact that they

reflect the key principles at the heart of the White Paper. The

four key principles are: legal and civil rights, independence,

choice, and inclusion. People with learning disabilities,

according to the White Paper, have the right to vote, to

marry and to have a family. Two papers in this collection

directly echo these themes. The first one looks at barriers to

voting, and the second looks at ways of supporting parents

with learning disabilities.

The paper by Dorothy Bell, Colin McKay and Kathryn

Phillips is of direct relevance to supporting (and enforcing)

the civil rights of people with learning disabilities. It looks at

‘the barriers to voting’ and how they might be overcome.

Voting is seen here as a means of inclusion in the democratic

process and, as such, an important signifier of citizenship.

There are undoubtedly barriers to voting for people with

learning disabilities but these are more social and environ-

mental than legal. The authors suggest how people can

be supported to learn about the process of voting and to

understand the issues involved.

The paper by Anne Woodhouse, Gill Green and Sara

Davies is also of direct relevance to the civil rights of people

with learning disabilities. The topic is ‘Parents with learning

disabilities’, and the authors describe how a small clinical

psychology department, with limited resources, has devised

a successful support strategy for parents and people who

work with them. The support operates at several levels,

including training, advice and consultancy for other profes-

sionals working with parents with learning disabilities. The

service also provides a supportive environment, including a

parents’ group, where parents have the opportunity to

develop parenting skills and discuss issues around child

care. The model appears to work, and the authors recom-

mend it as a framework for other services with limited

resources.

People with learning disabilities, according to the White

Paper, need opportunities to be part of mainstream society,

to do ‘ordinary things’ and be fully included in local com-

munities. Two papers in this issue address key issues to do

with social inclusion� the choice and take up of leisure

pursuits and how to keep safe whilst leading ordinary lives

in local communities. The paper by Suzie Beart et al. ‘Barriers

to accessing leisure opportunities’, reports on an issue of

great interest and importance to people with learning dis-

abilities wanting to do ‘ordinary things’ in their lives. In a

series of focus groups, Beart and her colleagues looked not

only at the leisure pursuits that people with learning disabil-

ities were actually pursuing but also at those they would like

to take up – and at the barriers that they thought prevented

them from doing so. Although a range of community-based

leisure activities were identified, often they took place in day

centre time. Other longed-for activities, ranging from club-

bing to windsurfing, were not taken up, mostly, it seemed,

through lack of transport and lack of support.

Keeping safe, especially by avoiding potentially danger-

ous situations, is an important part of doing ordinary things

in local communities – especially at weekends and evenings,

outside day-centre time. This is the theme of the paper by

Karen Long and Nan Holmes: ‘Helping adults with a learn-

ing disability keep safe in the local community’. The authors

devised, and evaluated, Keeping Safe groups for people with

learning disabilities. The groups aimed to focus on heighten-

ing their members’ awareness of their personal safety so

that they could avoid potentially difficult situations and

encounters.

If rights, inclusion, choice and independence are the main

principles of the White Paper, then who are the people on the

ground who can make the principles a reality? One answer,

suggested by David Stewart and Margaret Todd in the final

# 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29, 117–118 117

paper in this issue, is that ‘nurses for learning disabilities’

may have the key role in the future in making these things

happen. Although nurses have a diverse range of qualities

and skills, and a breadth of knowledge, they have not yet

been very good at presenting their role clearly to others. Are

they, as the authors suggest, ‘flexible, pragmatic and adap-

table’ and able to help bring about change? Or are there other

practitioners with a similar claim to make? No doubt the

future pages of this journal will begin to reveal the answer to

these questions.

118 D. Atkinson and J. Walmsley

# 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29, 117–118