Many people with learning disabilities want to work and charities such as United Response are helping them do so. Jaime Gill reports on the key to successful supported employment

People with learning disabilities have often been regarded as unemployable. Since the 1980s, however, there has been a growing awareness that many people with a learning disability wanted to work and could do so. As someone who is supported by the national learning disability charity United Response said recently: ‘Working makes me feel more important… it helps me to be meeting people. I’m being something that I’ve always wanted to be.’