Save Garvald Edinburgh Day Services

Edinburgh Council intends to stop funding people with learning disabilities attending Garvald Edinburgh.

Garvald Edinburgh runs a range of workshops that offer a variety of meaningful work opportunities to around 125 adults with learning disabilities. Garvald Edinburgh is a community of people – members and staff- who support and value each other, and it is the diversity of people and the diversity of their talents and abilities that allows this to happen.

Some members combine working at Garvald Edinburgh with other activities, such as college courses and in some cases, employment. But it is Garvald that gives people the solid base and support to do this. This is evidenced by Scottish Care Commission which gave Garvald Edinburgh the highest possible gradings on all its standards of care when it inspected these services in November 2008. Garvald Edinburgh places high priority on social skills and friendships without which may lead them to living a very sheltered and lonely life. The whole ethos of Garvald Edinburgh is to include rather than exclude and this works by allowing individuals with differing needs to interact and support each other.

Edinburgh Council’s Health and Social Care Department’s intention is to stop funding adults with learning disabilities who go there if they are assessed in the eyes of the council as needing ‘moderate’ or ‘low’ levels of support. This will destroy the outstanding inclusive culture and ethos of Garvald Edinburgh.

http://www.garvaldedinburgh.org.uk