Person Centred: We put the interests, beliefs and ambitions of everyone AFK works with at the centre of everything we do.
Collaborative: AFK is a collaborative community, and we work together to help young people lead independent and fulfilled lives.
Empowering: AFK unlocks everyone’s potential by enabling everyone we work with to feel appreciated, supported and motivated.
We help prepare young people with learning disabilities for life after school through our accredited education, training and work experience programmes.
We also provide mobility equipment not available on the NHS to disabled children and young people up to age 25 across the UK.
Our focus is on a young person’s potential and aspirations, not the apparent barriers they face. This is part of the social model of disability, which says that disability is caused by negative attitudes and exclusion within society, rather than the individual’s impairment. This is different to the medical model of disability, which simply looks at the functions of the body and whether it conforms to what’s seen as ‘normal’.
Here at AFK we work to address and remove the social barriers that disable people, by providing mobility equipment, education support, skills training and helping young people secure work placements. We believe these services are an essential part of helping young people succeed.
We believe it’s our social and economic structures that stop disabled people from living an engaged and fulfilling life, not the impairment or disability.
This is what we tell our students and trainees: you don’t need to change; society does.
