CELEBRATE LEARNING DISABILITY WEEK WITH CANTERBURY OAST TRUST (COT)!

Published: 6 June 2014

Have you been to the Rare Breeds Centre and enjoyed playing with the animals in the children’s barn that are being cared for by adults with learning disability, some with Downs Syndrome, some with Aspergers Syndrome, some with Autism? Have you been sold an entry ticket in our shop or served a meal in the Granary Restaurant by one of our Life-skills students training to acquire skills to improve their employability and get a job and just be a regular part of the world we all live in?

So many people have heard about the Rare Breeds Centre and not so many understand that it is owned and operated by COT- one of the key objectives of our charity is to develop understanding of learning disability and challenge everyone to define what normal actually is! Quite a challenging thought…but one that is worth a ponder as you are walking around our lovely 100 acre Farm and enjoying all it has to offer.

We are supporting MENCAP’s Learning disability week from June 16th-22nd 2014 and we want to shout about our successes and celebrate all we have achieved so the public in Kent know and understand more about us. Becoming the national winner of the Care Employer of the Year at the Great British Care Awards in April this year was a real achievement for  a Kent based charity and one based upon the quality of our training and development of our staff and how well they work with those we support.

Our staff support adults with a learning disability to strive to achieve all they possibly can and not to be constrained. Pictured is Sarah Kirk our Retail Life-skills tutor (second left) with her students Lucy Allan, Paul Featherstone and Luke Woodcock working in the ticket and gift-shop on site at the Rare Breeds Centre learning retail skills and training towards their City & Guilds qualifications.

Gill Gibb, CEO of COT says ‘Many people have no idea 30 of the adults we support actually live on site at the Rare Breeds Centre and to them it is a lovely home in beautiful surroundings that can be quite busy and noisy at times when we have an event or the sun is shining! Support us throughout Learning Disability week by visiting us and learning a little about the work we do and all the great things we achieve’

COT will be tweeting throughout the week using #LDWeek2014 and encourage you to do the same- visit our website c-o-t.org.uk for more information about our work with learning disability or rarebreeds.org.uk for information about visiting our Rare Breeds Farm.