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Real Life Options is a national, not-for-profit, voluntary organisation, with clear values about the rights of people with learning disabilities to determine their own future.

Founded in 1992, we provide direct support for people with severe learning disabilities. The first services were opened in early 1993 in London.

From the outset we have been committed to the principle of separating personal support from the provision of accommodation. Our directors and staff are committed to a set of values, which recognise that:

All people have the same human value and worth irrespective or ethnic origin or race, religious persuasion, gender, sexual orientation or physical or intellectual disability.

We believe that people with disabilities have a right to exercise control in all areas of their lives, and that the role of service agencies and their workers is to support people in their daily lives. In Real Life Options, this process of support is, and should be, fundamentally different to the traditional interpretation of the caring role. We reflect these values in all of our work and in every type of service that we provide, and in this way seek to value people with disabilities as people first.

We believe that people with disabilities have a right to be part of the local community in which they live. We recognise that people with multiple disabilities require a great deal more support, if they are to have the same opportunities to live an ordinary life as other people. To this extent we believe in positive discrimination, where it seeks to remedy the effects of social prejudice and injustice. This is particularly the case where people with disabilities do not share the same common rights as other citizens, or where the bureaucratic, judicial or legislative processes frustrate the rights of self determinacy for a particular group of disabled people.

To download the Real Life Options Equality and Diversity policy, click here