Mindroom

Mindroom is a Scottish charity that supports people with learning difficulties. They provide one-to-one support for families, offer help and advice for individuals and organisations who work with people with learning difficulties, and strive to increase knowledge and understanding among policymakers.

In 2005 Mindroom launched a Direct Help and Support service, supporting families and professionals.

• Outreach help is offered free of charge to families and carers. The charity deals with requests on issues about diagnosis, getting support at school, placing requests and home tuition.
• Mindroom is working with NHS Lothian to set up a new space at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh where families will be able to access up to date information and advice.
• Mindroom's Direct Help and Support Manager is Mig Coupe, a speech and language therapist with 30 years experience of and speciality in Learning Difficulties.
• The charity has produced "An Information Guide to your Essential Rights” for parents, containing information on rights and services such as mediation.
• Mindroom conducted a survey of Scottish schools in 2008 which found that the incidence of learning difficulties in classrooms is one in every five pupils, higher than previous Scottish Government figures suggested.
• The charity provides training workshops for professionals, (teachers, educational support workers and health care professionals). It is an approved training resource and all training/events contributes towards Continuing Professional Development. Over 550 professionals have accessed training in the last year.
• The charity has distributed over 80,000 support packs to teaching professionals titled “It Takes all Kinds of Minds".

Mindroom has held a number of conferences and master classes with over 2,500 delegates and expert international speakers from the field of learning difficulties. Conferences bring together any new research into the brain with the practicalities of living with learning difficulties.

Past conferences include:

• Social Brain 3 – See The Bigger Picture [1] at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 2011
• The Social Brain 2 – See The Bigger Picture at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 2006
• Mindroom Master Class – London College of Fashion 2004
• See The Bigger Picture – Edinburgh International Conference Centre 2003

Other Mindroom activities include:

• Facilitated summer camps for children and young adults with learning difficulties at Camp Kasper, rated by the Care Commission as excellent.
• Collaborations with employers including Royal Mail to improve inclusion policies.

Background

Mindroom was founded in 2001 by Sophie Dow to promote awareness of conditions such as autism, Asperger syndrome, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), Tourette syndrome, dyslexia, Deficits in Attention, Motor control and Perception (DAMP) and any other neuropsychiatric conditions that may cause learning difficulties. This came about primarily as a result of Sophie's experiences with her daughter, Annie, who has severe learning difficulties as a consequence of a unique chromosomal deletion, and the challenges she came across in accessing information on learning difficulties. Mindroom was set up to address that problem.

Funding

Mindroom currently receives no statutory funding. The majority of funding comes from charitable trusts, with the remainder coming from fundraising activities and donations.

The future

Mindroom’s long term goal is to set up Mindroom Centres for diagnosis and assessment, research and development and education and training.

References

^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

1. ^ http://www.fsdc.org.uk/to-better-lives/education/uesful-links?searched=mindroom&advsearch=oneword&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1
2. ^ http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Driven-by-a-need-to.6081000.jp
3. ^ http://www.checkthemap.org/Members/mindroom/learningdisabilitysupport.html
4. ^ http://www.fabresearch.org/view_item.aspx?item_id=1187
5. ^ http://dyslexiauntied.blogspot.com/2010/02/mindroom-learning-without-boundaries.html
6. ^ http://www.self-help.org.uk/directory/dyslexia/?entryid54=30717&p=2

External links

• http://www.mindroom.org