Ministers launch new flagship Mencap Centre in Belfast

Mencap in Northern Ireland opened a brand new £4.6m purpose built centre for children with a learning disability and their families, the first of its kind for Mencap in the UK.

The state-of-the-art centre will serve as a new model for early intervention services across the UK and Ireland and provide much needed support services for families and young adults with a learning disability. At the heart of the new building is the Children’s Centre, a nursery for 2-4-year-old children with a learning disability, autism or developmental delay, many of whom have multiple, profound and complex needs.

The Mencap Centre will take a unique approach to the health care and education provision it offers by housing therapists from the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust on site. This means children and young people will have access to the variety of therapies and support services they need all under one roof, providing huge benefits to them and their families who would have otherwise experienced time and cost pressures incurred by the travel to and from hospital appointments.

Following the ribbon cutting ceremony where the ministers were joined by Luca Heron (3), a child who attends Mencap’s Children’s Centre, Margaret Kelly, Director, Mencap in Northern Ireland, explained that the opening of the innovative centre is just the start of what’s to come for Mencap.

“Our new centre will allow us to develop and grow our early years and early intervention services and help us accomplish our vision of reaching more children and young people with a learning disability across Northern Ireland,”

Margaret said. “We will then use this experience and body of evidence to develop further programmes and explore how best these techniques can be successfully implemented beyond our Mencap Centre.”

“We will also continue to support adults with a learning disability to ensure they are valued, listened to and included through our extensive employment service which works with over 600 young people and adults every year. The Mencap Centre will also act as a base for our exciting plans around developing more and better housing to allow our young people and adults to lead independent and fulfilling lives. At the same time we will invest in a new range of out-reach family support services that help parents develop the skills they need to support their child’s development.

“We are delighted to officially open our doors today and make this important step for both Mencap and the learning disability community across these islands.”

Following a tour of the new building, First Minister, Arlene Foster said: “It is an honour to open this new £4.6million purpose built centre which will support those with a learning disability and their families right across Northern Ireland.

“The Northern Ireland Executive’s Disability strategy acknowledges that people with disabilities deserve to be treated equally alongside those without disabilities.

“The opening of this state of the art centre today reaffirms our commitment to addressing and removing the obstacles that people with disabilities face to ensure they have the same equality of opportunity and equality of treatment enjoyed by others in society.

“I am immensely proud of Northern Ireland and I want to ensure that our young people and adults with a learning disability receive the support they need to reach their full potential and to live the life they want to lead.”