Sarah’s story

Posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2019

Sarah felt increasingly isolated in her final year before graduation. As life with her newly acquired health condition progressed, she struggled to keep up with the increasing demands of her course. Feeling unsupported by her university, she got in touch with Lead Scotland’s disabled students’ helpline. Sarah was diagnosed with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome going into […]

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Pat’s story

Posted on Friday, November 16th, 2018

“It’s hard…it looks like we are going to have to battle the system once again,” said Pat, after her son Matthew was told he had to find funding for another year at college himself, including the expensive travel costs he would incur as a result of his impairment. The challenges of funding were putting a […]

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Mark Completes Activity Agreement

Posted on Friday, May 26th, 2017

It has just been 5 months since Mark from Aberdeenshire started his Activity Agreement on Stage 1 of the employability programme back in January this year. He has discovered a new sense of confidence in these past few months. Not only has he nearly completed NC 4 Core Skills in Numeracy but also attended an […]

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Casey Starts Volunteering at Café Connect

Posted on Monday, March 13th, 2017

I met Casey and her mum Sharron during November 2016.  Casey is 19 years old and comes from a small village in the North East of Aberdeenshire.   She belongs to a close knit family and has a special bond with her grandparents who live in the same village.  At present, she is living with her […]

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Reasonable Adjustments in Exams

Posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2017

A parent contacted the helpline, looking for information and advice about what their child’s rights were in relation to receiving ‘reasonable adjustments’ for a university admissions test for a degree course their child had applied to. The university was refusing to allow adjustments for an entry exam for their child, who had a specific learning […]

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Organising Support at College

Posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2017

Elizabeth, who is a member of the ASN staff at an Edinburgh school, contacted Lead’s information service regarding Calum, a learner with cerebral palsy who was leaving school and progressing to college the following year. Calum was going to require a relatively complex support package and funding arrangement and his family were not sure who […]

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How studying impacts on benefits

Posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2017

A young disabled person phoned the helpline to try and find out how their benefits would be affected if they were to undertake post-graduate study. They were very anxious and frustrated as they had called multiple agencies to try and get the correct information, but had been receiving conflicting answers as their individual situation was […]

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2016 at a Glance

Posted on Friday, January 20th, 2017

Thanks to Jim Byrne Associates for putting together the following infographic for us to highlight all the great work which has been happening in the past year.

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Learners Gain Adult Achievement Award

Posted on Friday, January 13th, 2017

During October to December last year, Barbara, our Aberdeenshire Learning Co-ordinator has been working in partnership with the Co-ordinator from The Bridge Project in Fraserburgh to arrange for two groups of 4 learners to work towards an Adult Achievement Award. The Bridge Project is a partnership between Day Services and Employability in Aberdeenshire Council. It’s […]

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Louise

Posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2016

Louise wanted to improve her reading, writing and numbers skills beyond the limits of only being able to write her own name. Louise’s social worker referred her to Lead for possible support with her learning. With support from the Fife Coordinator, Louise made progress with form filling and reading and she is now able to […]

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“Doing something good with your time makes you feel good”

Posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2016

Volunteer Befriender, Laura Today we’re putting the spotlight on our new Befriending Project in Fife. Project Coordinator, Louise Andree has been taking referrals from Fife’s social work department, local community organisations, as well as some self-referrals since the beginning of the year. The growing waiting list for the project is testament to the obvious need for […]

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Off to college, can’t Wait!!

Posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2016

This quarter Amy, one of our Learning Coordinators, had the pleasure of working with a 50 year old gentleman with severe learning difficulties. The learner was at a low point in his life where he had little to do and felt he had been brushed off multiple times by other services throughout the city. The […]

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Celebrating Success with Emma

Posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2016

Celebrating success with Emma Sinkins who achieved her Adult Achievement Award from NewBattle Abbey College recently are Learning Co-ordinator, Barbara Taylor (left) and Helen Henderson, Senior Day Centre Officer at Ellon Resource Centre (right). Smiles all round as they enjoyed some Scottish sunshine too! Emma is enjoying being involved in a number of volunteering opportunities […]

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New Fundraising Pack!

Posted on Monday, June 27th, 2016

Hi it’s Amy here, one of the Fundraising Interns! Over the past week or so I have been creating (and redrafting and redrafting…) a Fundraising Pack to make it easier for people to raise money for Lead Scotland. The pack details some ideas as to how to raise money for Lead, as well as providing […]

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Tommy Receives the Adult Achievement Award

Posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2016

Tommy found his way to Lead via his GP and psychologist after a period of depression because he was determined to learn reading, writing and computer skills. After a few initial meetings in the library they moved to home learning. The library internet connection wasn’t very good and Tommy actually preferred one to one support […]

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Shirley is Determined not to be Held Back

Posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2016

Shirley got in touch with Lead via the Peer Team who bumped into Donna, our Learning Coordinator in the library. The Peer worker had found out by chance that Shirley had difficulty reading and writing. In her early 50’s now, she had hidden this from people since school, making excuses not to read. Only her […]

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Taking that first step back into learning

Posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2016

Eddie at the job centre told me about Lead.  A lot of services don’t come to the house but that’s what I need because I have panic attacks and agoraphobia.  I need someone with me all the time.  I wanted to build up my confidence. Through Eddie, I met Amy the Learning Co-ordinator and she […]

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Only Takes an Hour a Week to Make a Difference

Posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2016

I’ve been volunteering with Lead since December 2014. I’m a psychology tutor with the Open University. Why did I start volunteering? I set myself the goal of learning more about literacy development across the board, to supplement a qualification I was working towards. To this end, I approached Lead to gain some hands-on work experience. […]

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I’m about 80-85% back to who I used to be

Posted on Friday, April 15th, 2016

“I feel like I’m part of the world again.  Amy came into my life at exactly the right point.  I had been withdrawn and was frightened of people.  I had become anxious and experienced agoraphobia. The home visit was really important.  I would have had a lot of anxiety about going outside to meet anyone. […]

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Lead Scotland’s National Conference 2016

Posted on Friday, April 1st, 2016

Are We There Yet? Thursday 9th June 2016Improving lifelong and life wide learning journeys for disabled peopleThis Conference was kindly supported by Scottish Government and Perth College UHI.The Situation:The last decade has seen steadily increasing numbers of disabled people in Scotland requiring lifelong and life wide learning opportunities, in order to work, volunteer and sustain […]

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