A Course on leadership development originally designed for members of the National self advocacy forum to give its participants the knowledge and skills to influence policymaking at local and national level.

Working together with Tricia Nicoll from the Valuing People Support Team, Karen Flood and Bill Heron from First Step, the first course was held in London in 2005. We offered follow up support to the course participants to enable them to put into practice what they learnt.

Tomorrow's Leaders is about building new alliances which will become powerful and make real differences to the future of disabled people. The course builds on work already done by the National self-advocacy forum, and the Valuing People Support Team. It grew out of a desire to invest in self- advocate leadership, which in turn will contribute to more effective partnership working. It follows on from the other successful leadership development courses which have sprung from Partners and is a real investment in developing self-advocacy leadership.

Tomorrow's Leaders equips the course participants with the latest leading edge information in order to know what is possible to enable them to shape future policy. As with all Partners Courses it is about planning the best futures for themselves and other people with learning disabilities.

Underpinning the course content and design is a belief that people who use services and their families have always been the true experts on what they need and what they want in order to have positive and successful lives.

Tomorrow's Leaders consists of five sessions running over ten days. Each session will cover a topic and issues that are important to disabled people and their families.

The course will be as inclusive and accessible as possible, with reasonable expenses paid and support provided when needed.

“Learning about each other.”

“Understanding and relating to the system.”