'LoveLife' is highly innovative. It will directly benefit 48 people, 24 of whom will have a learning disability and indirectly benefit a minimum of 1440 people. It will develop a vocational Training Course for staff of service-providing organisations in collaboration with people with a learning disability that will also be of immediate benefit to family carers and will as part of the project legacy, be adapted to serve as a training course for people with a learning disability. The outcome we seek is to raise awareness amongst staff of service providers, family carers and people with a learning disability themselves of their rights and needs concerning personal relationships and sexuality, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The topic of personal relationships and sexuality is often still considered as a taboo by professionals and families of people with a learning disability. This situation urgently needs to be addressed via coherent training and sensitisation activities so that the competencies of staff working in the disability sector and family carers can be enhanced, their confidence in dealing with matters can grow, with the ultimate goal of improving the well-being of people with a learning disability. The project partners will seek to secure appropriate accreditation for the Training Course in their respective countries. 'LoveLife' uses an innovative approach focusing on a recognition that people with a learning disability are experts of experience, and training them as co-trainers with non-disabled colleagues to deliver this training course. 6 of the project partners (not EASPD) have played a direct role in trying to support people with a learning disability to address issues arising from relationships and sexuality. Aside from our university partner, Pädagogische Hochschule Salzburg,this activity has been of an informal, unaccredited nature and partners have to some extent been working in an isolated way in their countries. This is because since it is a difficult, sensitive topic, many organisations and family carers feel daunted and give priority to tackling other,less challenging areas. Partners to collaborate with within countries have therefore been hard to find.With an extensive Research Report (IO1), aimed at better understanding the needs of people with a learning disability and the barriers to healthy personal relationships and sexuality in their social and family environments, the partners of the 'LoveLife' project will create a comprehensive toolbox (IO2) and Glossary (IO3) that will be essential elements in development of a Training Course, but will also be a stand alone freely available resource to professionals and other stakeholders interested in this area. The development of a Curriculum (IO4) and a Training Manual (IO5) to include pedagogical methods and tools, will provide the framework for 2 intensive 'Train the Trainer' courses (C1 & C2). The courses, for a total of 48 direct beneficiaries as participants (24 of whom will have a learning disability) will give them the confidence, knowledge and skills they need to deliver the Training Course as part of the legacy of the project. The courses will be highly interactive, participative and practical. The 4 trained teams from each country who have participated in the 'Train the Trainer' courses will then disseminate information about all the Intellectual Outputs of the project at Multiplier Dissemination events. (E1-12). Two events with 20 participants each will take place per country. The second 'Train the Trainer' event and the final Training Manual will be informed by a Review (IO7)The Research report, the Training Manual and other tools will be made available without charge to the learning disability service sector and to advocacy organisations through the blog and partner websites. The training of people with a learning disability to act as experts of experience and staff of service-providing organisations as a team will increase and become a more formal part of the annual training programme of the partner organisations as a further legacy of the project.Learning from the research and training activities undertaken by the project will inform the creation of policy recommendations and guidelines. (IO8).These will draw attention to the rights and needs of people with a learning disability to benefit from confident and knowledgeable advice. A new vocational Training Course will be an important step in achieving these competencies. These recommendations will be disseminated amongst policy makers and other stakeholders at the local, regional, national and European government level. Other Intellectual Outputs developed by the project will include tools and activities to sensitise audiences to the rights and needs of people with a learning disability concerning personal relationships and sexuality: the DVD (IO2), a blog (IO6) and the Multiplier events in the partner countries.
LoveLife the project was collaboration between 7 partners who all worked to support people with a learning disability. Only 3 in 100 people with a learning disability are living with a partner in comparison to 72 of the general population. The topic of personal relationships and sexuality was still considered as a taboo by professionals and families of people with a learning disability. This situation urgently needed to be addressed via coherent training and sensitisation activities so that the competencies of staff working in the disability sector and family carers could be enhanced, their confidence in dealing with matters could grow, with the ultimate goal of improving the well-being of people with a learning disability. The objective of the project was to raise awareness around the rights of people with a learning disability to be supported to have meaningful relationships. To recognise that people with a learning disability are experts in their own situation and to empower them to deliver training to others who form part of the barriers to people accessing their rights. Lovelife directly benefited 48 people, 24 of whom will had a learning disability and indirectly benefit a minimum of 1440 people. They included people with a learning disability, support staff, support services professionals and family carers. Description of activities Lovelife set out a number of activities in order to ensure that the final products were useful, and designed to suit the need of the trainers and support the desired outcomes for the project. Through research and knowledge a Theoretical Framework was created. All partners produced an up to date summary of research in each partner Country. The project then produced a glossary of terms in plain English and Easy read English to support the trainers who have a learning disability. Our partners from the University of Salzburg where then able to draw up a comprehensive curriculum guide for the courses the project would deliver. This then supported our experts in training the trainer who has a learning disability to produce a training manual to be used as we supported the tandem trainers to learn to deliver courses with good materials. This was delivered to the first cohort of trainers before it was reviewed for effectiveness before being taught to our second tranche of trainers. As the 2nd part of the project the trainers delivered their Relationship training in their own partner countries to a mix of audiences. All partners delivered training to at least 40 people with some partners delivering to over a 100. On rolling out the training and evaluating to training and project as a whole the partners were then able to publish recommendations. Results and impact attained The whole project produced many good trainers who have continued to deliver training to other organisations and support providers beyond what was projected in the project. Evaluation for training delivered taught us that support staff felt more comfortable with the topic of sex and relationships. They reported that their work practice has now changed to be able to better support people to explore how they may have relationships or understand what knowledge and training they need before being comfortable with relationships. For the individual trainers there was a notable change in confidence, what they wanted out of relationships, how they identified as sexual beings. Many explored their sexual preferences and were able to talk about being lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans for the first time. Longer term benefits We believe the project trainers will continue to deliver training, advocate for others and raise awareness of the rights of people with a learning disability to have sex and relationships. Some project partners will go on to develop more training and support more trainers. All partners will lobby their National and Local governments to better support people with a learning disability to have relationships.