Did you know..... one in five people in Scotland are disabled? Employment rates for disabled people are 37.8 percentage points lower than for non-disabled people. Disabled people are three times more likely to be economically inactive. 78% of disabled people acquire their impairment aged 16 or older. Disabled people are 50% less likely to hold any formal qualification than non-disabled people and 25% of individuals in families with at least one disabled member live in income poverty compared to 16% for the rest of the population.
To tackle this inequality Lead Scotland offers a wide range of services throughout Scotland.
We love learning, simple as that. It’s our mission to work with a learner to find a way they can learn. Our services are free to learners. We have a person centred approach, which means we listen to what learners want and we work with other agencies to find the best way of offering a service. We support learners one-to-one and in groups depending on the needs of each learner. We ask people why and what they want to learn, for example, to gain skills for work, to feel more confident helping with their child’s homework, to become a volunteer, to learn digital skills to access services online, or perhaps to fulfil a lifetime ambition. Perhaps they have recently become disabled and want to talk to someone about how to get back into learning? Perhaps they are a carer, wondering how they can learn around their caring commitments.
Our Learning Co-ordinator’s will talk to learners about what, how and when they want to learn then find practical ways around any barriers, arrange support to learn from our trained volunteers or the Learning Co-ordinator themselves, possibly offer a loan of ICT equipment and this enables a learner to learn in a way that suits them.
Our approach supports learners through their learning journey in a way which is most effective to them. Some learners are working towards qualifications, others are looking for less formal training opportunities but all are given support to exit the service to a positive destination such a employment or volunteering.
National Helpline 0800 999 2568
On a national level we have a busy helpline service.
We also actively encourage disabled students to influence local and national policy to affect positive change. Learners contribute their experiences to government consultations to improve services for future students.
Lead Scotland in addition to the helpline provides an email enquiry service and free guides providing information and advice on a range of issues, such as accessing courses and funding, how benefits are affected by learning, disability related support to learn and rights under the Equality Act. You can find these at www.lead.org.uk
Lead Scotland works closely with a team of over 100 volunteers, each year, to deliver our essential service across Scotland. We support our volunteers with out of pocket expenses, training and qualifications.
For more information or to request support, volunteer with us or fundraise for Lead Scotland please visit www.lead.org.uk or call 0131 228 9441. Thank you.