On Friday, 23rd March 2018 I visited Brookside Day Centre, located in the town centre, which is an impressive premises supporting adults with learning difficulties. First set up in 2009, Brookside Day Centre in Northampton has been providing support to adults with learning difficulties through a range of activities that aim to: build independence; create social experiences; enable life skills; grow confidence; increase health and wellbeing; and enable real work experience. It was a pleasure meeting the hard-working staff and clients at the Day Centre and supporting the important work that they do.
During the visit, I also discussed the work that the Day Centre are doing with the Department for Work and Pensions and Starbucks to create more employment opportunities for autistic people in Northamptonshire. I think this is a brilliant cause and one which I certainly support. Indeed, I have previously done work to help boost employment for those with disabilities by co-sponsoring a Disability Confident in Northampton which demonstrated the benefits of hiring disabled people to local employers.
You can read about this here: https://www.michaelellis.co.uk/news/michael-opens-disability-confident-event-northampton.