We are pleased to announce that on Thursday 9 September 2010 the Minister of Care Services, launched the new Valuing People Now web pages. The Event was held at Richmond House and was attended by The National Director for learning disabilities Anne Williams, Co-National Director Scott Watkin, OGD officials and members of the Valuing People Now team. In addition family
carers and people with learning disabilities who were consulted and involved in the design and development of the web pages also attended this celebratory event.

The new web pages on the Department of Health website are highly accessible to everyone with learning disabilities. For instance, users are able to change font sizes,background colours and with the right software can listen whilst text is read.

The web pages are intended to be as inclusive as possible and the main pages have links to short films involving people with learning disabilities and their families. Some pages have been translated to the five main Black and Minority Ethnic languages used in the United Kingdom (Urdu, Bengali, Arabic, Polish and Panjabi).

The web pages can be found at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/valuingpeoplenow

To further raise awareness Valuing people now has a face book page. Please follow the link below to view this page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Valuing-People-Now/105389209519175?ref=ts

Please also note that they are also updated Learning Disabilities pages on the Department of Health website under Social Care:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/SocialCare/Learningdisabilities/index.htm

Over the next couple of weeks we will be working with our DH ecomms
colleagues to further update the various pages.

Kind regards,

Audrey Muchapondwa
Communications Lead
Office of the National Director for Learning Disabilities
Valuing People Now Team
Area 110
Wellington House
133-155 Waterloo House
London
SE1 8UG

Tel: 0207 972 3929