About the Author: Angela Catley
14 September 2022
My name is Angela Catley and I lead work on development for Community Catalysts, the CIC which hosts the Coalition for Personalised Care (C4PC). I have a background in working with people with a learning disability and am really interested in the issues they face.
Over the years I, C4PC and Community Catalysts have had a strong connection to Learning Disability England (LDE) – a membership organisation that brings together people with learning disabilities, families, friends and paid supporters on an equal basis. Members work together to build a world where people with learning disabilities have good lives with equal choices and opportunities as others. This aim really resonates with me, and I am sure it will also resonate with my colleagues at Community Catalysts and across our wider Local Area Coordination, C4PC and Small Good Stuff family. LDE is part of the C4PC Partner network.
I am pleased to share that I was recently elected as a member of the Representative Body at LDE. There are three types of members of this body: people with a learning disability, families and the one I am in which represents organisations and paid supporters.
The members of the Representative Body make sure that Learning Disability England stays true to its values and is always working towards its goals.
This is all new and I am still finding my feet, but I do know I need to find ways to share the work that LDE is doing and link with organisational members and represent their views. In my new role, I am particularly interested in trying to ensure this includes organisations and supporters that might not always have a strong voice. This might include very small organisations and community groups, local area coordinators, shared lives carers and others that work with and for people with a learning disability in creative ways.
I am using this blog to highlight the work of LDE and invite you to become a member if issues facing people with a learning disability are of interest to you or relevant to your role.
I’d also like to hear from you on the best way to link with you as your representative. I would like to continue to keep you informed of issues facing learning disabled people and invite you to comment and contribute to LDE’s response. Options are a regular blog and/or updates in the C4PC newsletter. Please let me know what would work best for you.
If you are already an LDE member, please do let me know – so I can start to better understand how the LDE, C4PC and Community Catalysts families intersect. Please also get in touch more generally if any of this is of interest to you or you have any comments or reflections.
Thank you
Angela Catley
