About Leonard Cheshire Disability
Leonard Cheshire Disability is the UK's largest voluntary sector provider of care and support services for disabled people, providing a wide range of services that directly support over 21,000 disabled people and their families in the UK. Our services include residential care homes, supported living, care at home services, day services, resource centres, rehabilitation, respite care, personal support and training and assistance for those looking for work. For more information about the charity, please visit our website www.LCDisability.org
Campaigning for the civil and human rights of disabled people is also a key activity for us. Our breadth of knowledge and experience gives us a unique platform from which to engage in public debate and to influence policy makers on the social policy and civil rights issues that have an impact on disabled people. To this end we have just launched the second phase of our Creature Discomforts campaign, which aims to provoke a challenging debate to encourage people to think and act differently in the way that they engage with disabled people in all aspects of life. For more information about the campaign, please visit the website www.CreatureDiscomforts.org
The empowerment of our service users, through the work of the Service User Networking Association, is another key activity which ensures that our services users are involved in the governance of the organisation at all levels, and that the services and support the charity provides meet the needs of the disabled people who use them.
Internationally Leonard Cheshire Disability has over 250 services in 55 countries around the world. International services include inclusive education for disabled children, training and research to aid recovery in post-conflict and post-disaster countries, and an International Self Reliance programme, which helps disabled people become financially independent by providing small business loans, improving access to training and running disability awareness programmes.
Our history
Leonard Cheshire Disability the organisation was established in 1948 by Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC OM DSO DFC following a distinguished wartime career in the RAF.
Leonard Cheshire set up the first Cheshire home in his own home, Le Court, when he nursed a terminally ill ex-serviceman who was unable to find care elsewhere. To his surprise, he found others in need coming to him for help. Le Court soon became a focus for other disabled people who were not having their needs met and, inspired by Leonard Cheshire, local communities came forward asking for help in setting up a service for themselves. By 1955 there were not only five services in the UK, but the first overseas project had also been started outside Mumbai in India.
Leonard Cheshire soon became established as a pioneering provider of care services. In the early 1970s the organisation began to diversify the nature of the care it offered, first trialling a care in the community project which became our Care At Home services across the UK. Leonard Cheshire has continued to innovate, and our services today include respite care, day services, resource centres, independent living units, and services for people with an acquired brain injury.
Leonard Cheshire is well established as the leading disability care charity, still innovating in the spirit of its founder and identifying new ways to match the aspirations and choices of disabled people in the UK and internationally.