A TV documentary about adults with learning disabilities leaving home for the first time has raised vital public awareness about the issue, a charity boss has said.

Ben Lanes, a director at residential homes charity Style Acre, said last night’s Against The Odds: Tonight highlighted pressure on older parents.

The ITV documentary followed four adult friends with learning disabilities who are due to move in together in Charlton, Wantage.

The four know each other from their time together at The Fitzwaryn School in Wantage and are all aged between 40 to 50.

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Style Acre will provide 24-hour support staff and Style Housing completed a £90,000 renovation at the house where they will move into in November Style Acre supported living director Mr Lanes said: “A lot of older carers look after their children until they themselves die which can leave children in crisis.

“Older carers really need to be higher on the agenda, they are not a particularly vocal group.”

He said the four are in “quite a unique situation” and support staff will be “helping them help themselves, which is often a lot harder than just doing it for them”.

He said: “A meal which might take you or I half an hour to cook might take someone with learning disabilities two hours.”

Mark Ebsworth, 43, who has Down’s Syndrome and was at the heart of the programme, said he was “very excited” about moving in with this friends. Marianne Campbell, 49 and Andrew Rowland, 40 have learning difficulties;and Dick Prior, 50, has congenital brain damage.

Mark’s mother Monica Ebsworth, 62, said: “We always said since Mark left that school that one day he would have to move out.

“Three year’s ago, my husband Tony had a stroke, I also have health difficulties, and we realised that day had arrived.”

The family struggled to find exactly the help they wanted, until Style Acre offered to find Mark and his friends a house in Wantage within a year.

Mrs Ebsworth, of Upthorpe Drive, said: “We didn’t want to budge on the Wantage aspect.

“Mark is such a sociable guy, he’s very well known in Wantage and we knew he needed 24-hour care.

“Style Acre are really good people, I couldn’t trust them with anything more than my son’s future.”

She said: “The excitement among Mark and his friends that they will be TV stars is wonderful.

“But I also hope other people watching will say ‘perhaps we can do that as well’.”

Style Acre’s 250 staff provide support and raise funds for 80 adults with learning difficulties in Oxfordshire.

In 2013/14 the charity spent just under £5m, mostly from Oxfordshire County Council.


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