Innovative training for Destined Board of Directors

Destined is unique in that the majority of its board of directors, management and project committees are people with learning disabilities and this training has been specially designed to give the directors an understanding of the responsibilities and roles of directors.

The training programme was designed by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) as part of the Big Lottery Fund Reaching Communities programme.

Roisin Kelly from NICVA said "We identified the need for this training during discussions with Destined about their overall training requirements. However, we recognised that the current governance training would not be effective, so we designed a new training programme especially for people with learning disabilities".

The Destined Chairperson, Roisin O'Hara, said "There are not many organisations that have people with learning disabilities on their board of directors and there are definitely not too many that have them as the majority of the board. We need the skills to fulfil our responsibilities and are delighted that NICVA has designed this course specifically for us".

She continued "We have an ethos that says that people with learning disabilities should have the same equality of opportunity as anyone in the community and with this training we will be much more able to carry out our duties. Many of our directors are quite young and it is great that they are giving their time to the organisation on a voluntary basis".