Our collaboration with Shelter on new housing easy reads

Living in a safe and secure home is as important for people with a learning disability as it is for everyone else.

Finding a place to live is an important part of living independently, but there are often challenges to this happening.

We were receiving many real-life questions on housing from people coming to our Learning Disability Helpline, but we didn’t have up to date resources to support them.

We contacted Shelter for support on this, and fortunately they were also looking to make more accessible resources themselves. We worked in partnership every step of the way, and ensured that the resources were being co-produced with people with a learning disability so we could be confident they were as accessible as possible.??

“These new resources are important because they will help people with a learning disability to have a home of their own with the right support. People with a learning disability have the right to have their own home just like anyone else.?if I needed support in my home, I could look at the easy read guides and know where to go to contact for support like talk to my landlord, Shelter or Mencap" – Ciara, Mencap engagement lead

Working together in this way worked out very well, and the team are already using the easy read resources to handle housing enquires on the helpline, providing an extra level of support we couldn’t offer before.??

“The housing easy reads are a valuable resource that help me to support people with a learning disability and their families and carers. Recently I shared them with a carer, giving them the tools to communicate more effectively with the person they cared for. The easy reads clearly explained housing related matters, and helped a person with a learning disability to understand what it means to be a tenant. They helped the person make an informed choice about their future.” ?- Tina, Mencap learning disability caseworker

People need information in a format that helps them to understand what choices they have, and what the consequences of making a certain decision are. Producing resources in Easy Read is a great way to help to break down sometimes complex topics into more manageable pieces – and not just for people with a learning disability!

“Co-producing the easy reads with people with a learning disability made for better content. The team at Mencap really challenged us to make things as simple and clear as possible. We’re used to turning complex housing advice into easy-to-understand content at Shelter. But the team at Mencap showed us how we could improve things in ways we wouldn't have thought of. We’re now bringing these learnings into the rest of the content we make.” - Alice, content designer at Shelter

We need more accessible content like this, to meet the diverse needs of our community and provide the right answers in the right way for people to truly understand. With housing issues and homelessness rising rapidly, these new resources have been produced at a key time.

“These new resources are important to people with a learning disability because it will help them to understand what they can do and cannot do in their own home. Everyone has the right to live in their own home just like everybody else. If I need to know what I need to do when getting support on housing, the easy read guides will help me by following the information.” – Vijay, Mencap campaigns officer

Take a look at our new easy read resources and learn more about living in your own home.