Talking about sex: a relationship awareness group for adults with a learning disability
Intended for healthcare professionals
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Talking about sex: a relationship awareness group for adults with a learning disability

Matthew Doughty Occupational therapist, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, community learning disability team, Hanley, Staffordshire, England
Leanne Race Assistant psychologist, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, Staffordshire, England
Phillip Emery Community nurse, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, Staffordshire, England
Kath Salt Community nurse, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, Staffordshire, England

Sex and relationships are areas of taboo and disempowerment for marginalised groups such as people with learning disabilities. These topics also appear to be areas of unease for healthcare professionals. Described here is the approach taken by a multidisciplinary team in an NHS trust to overcome such issues while meeting the specific needs of people with learning disabilities. The approach was to develop a relationship awareness group and this article discusses the background and rationale for this group along with the programme’s ethos, content and outcomes.

Learning Disability Practice. 20, 5, 17-22. doi: 10.7748/ldp.2017.e1836

Correspondence

matthew.doughty@northstaffs.nhs.uk

Conflict of interest

At the time of writing all four authors were facilitating the relationship awareness group mentioned in this article

Peer review

This article has been subject to double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Received: 26 January 2017

Accepted: 15 June 2017

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