In May 2012, The Richardson Partnership for Care became an officially-recognised accreditation centre with ASDAN – the Awards Scheme Development Accreditation Network. The organisation provides courses to thousands of training providers, which offer flexible ways to accredit skills development and enrichment activities.

For service users with learning difficulties, ASDAN offers the flexibility to complete modules in different ways according to each individual’s abilities, preferences and concentration levels. It also means that service users can gain accredited qualifications in a familiar environment, working with people that they know and trust. Receiving a certificate for their efforts also provides a sense of achievement and fulfilment, which often encourages them to progress to further learning and qualifications.

As Arts & Crafts is a popular activity within our homes for adults with learning difficulties, we started the ASDAN programme with the Creativity module. This has led onto modules in Independent Living (Introduction and Progression levels) and Numeracy Skills (Introduction and Progression levels). Sallie Maris, our ASDAN Co-ordinator finds creative ways to encourage the service users to participate in the modules and gain new skills. For example, learning numeracy skills may involve baking a cake, dividing it into segments and sharing it with others. We are now starting modules called ‘Myself and Others’ and ‘Personal Care Routines’.

Evidence must be provided for each task and assessments for each module are independently verified. Each individual is awarded a ‘grade’ for their module as follows: Experience recorded, Sensory experience, Physical help, Spoken help, No help. These ‘grades’ ensure that people with disabilities can still be treated fairly and their qualifications properly accredited.

The scatter diagram below shows the ASDAN qualifications obtained by service users with learning difficulties in Creativity and Independent Living, where 1 represents ‘Experience Recorded’ and 5 represents ‘No Help’.