About Reach Social Foundation | Charity for Adults with Learning Disabilities

About Us

Providing specific person-centred occupational training and skill development to cover employability, personal growth and entrepreneurship skills.

The Purpose

Reach Social Foundation raises funds to deliver training and skills development opportunities for young adults (above the age of 18 years) with learning disabilities.

The organisation provides in-person occupational training to cover employability, personal development, and entrepreneurship skills including but not limited to self-awareness, financial management, arts, recycling and upcycling, planning and implementing projects, printing, engraving, gardening, and baking.

The training sessions run 6 days a week with flexible hours on weekdays (between 9am and 9pm) and (11am to 4pm) on Saturdays.

The sessions offered are for 6-hour blocks except for Saturdays, this will be a 5-hour block.

Reach Social Foundation works closely with the local authority, support networks, healthcare services and family members to identify beneficiaries which can be referred by their local authority, support services, or family members.

We also partner with retail outlets, small businesses, and social enterprises across Southampton to offer paid employment and/or voluntary experience to people with learning disabilities to further develop their skills.

We strive to change the perception and culture associated with individuals who have challenges with lived experiences of a learning disability.

The Benefit

Learning disabilities and autism could be a lifelong challenge that may affect the ability to learn new skills and carry out daily activities. Generally, learning disabilities affect the lives of people and their engagement in occupations and activities that are important to them.

For people with learning disabilities and autism, imagining a future or dream career is not as easy because “the assumption is that they will not "be" anything.”

We're on a mission to change that.

Our solution to this barrier is to deliver training for people with learning disabilities and autism to gain skills for the workplace as well as offer opportunities that will enable them to gain paid employment or volunteer roles in the community. This will be done using a reliance support method which offers more independence and is a good confidence builder, as apposed to a dependency support.

This increases the potential of people with learning disabilities and autism and their social value to contribute to their communities with greater value and worth.