Sharing, mutual support, identifying common issues, and taking action are key features of Together 4 Change communities. Our communities have more than 81,000 members. Members, collectively, also receive thousands of emails from our email forums each month. These figures grow by the day! The information shared within the online communities is also often shared with many more thousands of people.
Our portfolio of online communities currently comprises the following forums:
The Mental Health Forum
This community started in 2003 as the 1 in 4 Forum. It was renamed the Mental Health Forum in 2007. Over 107,000 people with a connection to mental health have become members. Together, these members have demonstrated that there a need to change the way support is available to people with mental health difficulties. While the forum originally started out as an initiative of the Mental Health Foundation, today it is run by an increasing number of volunteers, approximately 50 at the last count, with our support. A feature of this forum is the wide range of perspectives taken, the breadth of subject areas discussed, and its local, national, and international focuses.
The Choice Forum
This is a Learning Disabilities Forum which deals with issues affecting the lives of people with learning disabilities in the UK. It started in the year 2000 in response to research which showed that many people working with people with learning disabilities were isolated and would appreciate receiving more support in their quest to support people with learning disabilities to have more choice in their lives. It is run in partnership with the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities.
LDOX – Oxfordshire’s Learning Disabilities Community
LDOX is our first community on a local level. LDOX aims to ensure that people with learning disabilities, people with autism, children with special educational needs and people with related disabilities in Oxfordshire get the best support and opportunities available.
Parents, friends, relatives, people working in the field, and of course people with learning disabilities themselves are invited to join the forum, ask questions, share information, and talk about what is happening in their lives!
The community combines a clean, modern web-based forum with excellent email integration.
The UK Health and Learning Disabilities Network
The UK Health and Learning Disabilities Network has been a key place to share information about the health of people with learning disabilities in the UK since the early 2000s. Everyone who has an interest in the health of people with learning disabilities is welcome to join.
It gives members access to a national community of people interested in health and people with learning disabilities, including nurses, doctors, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, dietitians, physiotherapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, commissioners and university lecturers/professors.
The network aims to assist health practitioners in both mainstream and specialist services with the health and learning disability agenda and concentrates on problem-solving, information sharing and networking.
The UK Health and Learning Disabilities Network is run in partnership with the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities.