1. Introducing the Learning Disabilities toolkit
August, 2019
This presentation can be used as a foundation for your own; please feel free to add more slides and amend as you wish.

2. Why use this toolkit?
This toolkit was developed specifically to support those local offices that wish to offer financial capability to groups of clients with learning disabilities.
This toolkit was developed upon a basis of learning and practitioner experience established by work done by Stockton Citizens Advice, and then developed further using expertise from our own financial capability experts.

3. Who exactly can this toolkit reach?
This toolkit is aimed specifically at those clients with learning disabilities, whose levels of literacy, numeracy and cognitive insight is such that the foundational sessions in our generic resource offer may still be unsuitable.
Trainers are welcome to use elements of our generic offer with these clients as well, as they see fit.
Who should this be used with?
This toolkit is aimed at anyone with a learning disability, whether it is considered severe or not and whether or not they have the support of a carer.
The range of potential abilities within this group is very wide: ultimately, the adviser will need to make an assessment of what topics suit the class, and whether some should be discarded as too basic or too advanced.

4. How to use the Learning Disabilities toolkit
The toolkit contains four sessions, designed for four consecutive two-hour sessions with a group. Each session comes with tutor notes, and then a separate learner ‘workbook’. Advisers should print out as many of the latter as they need, but are advised to keep a master copy of their own tutor notes, which they can annotate and add to over time.
Session one – Understanding cash
Session two – Understanding banks
Session three – Saving and borrowing
Session four – Living by yourself
The toolkit is - like all of our resources – considered to be a live work-in-progress. Please contact the Financial Capability and Consumer Education Team if you have any suggestions for improvements or alternatives.

5. Tips to keep in mind
Advisers may find it useful to approach these sessions in pairs: it can be very helpful to have more tutors on hand during a session, even if there are carers available to offer support.
Be flexible with your timings: you may find that actually these sessions only take your particular group an hour each, or perhaps each session actually takes so long it needs to be split up!
Be mindful to give these learners regular breaks in the session.
And remember - we have our Best Practise guide to working with clients with Learning Disabilities within our resource offer.

6. Recording on Casebook
Each activity in the toolkit has some recommended AIC codes for them included in the tutor notes.
Advisers do not have to use these if they feel their particular lesson did not cover the recommended areas, but generally these codes will accurately reflect the session.
Further advice on Citizens Advice evaluation methods is also included in each session of the toolkit.
The recommended AIC code is here

7. What happens next?
The Learning Disabilities toolkit is designed to support local offices when working with groups of learners.
However, although the toolkit is provided for all local Citizens Advice and partner organisations to use, it is still very much a ‘work-in-progress’ and should be used as such.
New versions will be uploaded online at regular intervals, in response to continued feedback and practical testing.
For those local offices interested in new and innovative models, which are catered to address the differing channels and needs of our clients, they can see the various toolkits available in the Resource Toolkits tab of the financial capability section of the Citizen Advice website.
Further toolkits will be added as they leave the testing stage of their respective projects.

8. For any further information or feedback, contact us at Financial
For any further information or feedback, contact us at

9. The Financial Capability and Consumer Education Team
Bas Diablos
Financial Capability Development Lead
Dominic Mukwamba
Financial Capability Development Officer
Mel McGinn
Consumer Education Development Consultant
Abby Samuel

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