The Voices Council

The Mencap Voices Council

A group of people standing outside a building.

The Voices Council is a group of 12 people with a learning disability.

There is a Chair and a Vice Chair who lead the group.

We share our views and experiences to help support Mencap’s Board of Trustees to make decisions.

A group of people sitting around a table. Each person has a hand up to vote.

The members are people with a learning disability across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Some might be involved in local Mencap groups or supported by Mencap.

Voices Council members can not be employed by Mencap.

We think it’s important to have people with different types of learning disabilities in our group.

A calendar page showing a meeting with people sitting around a table.

The group meets 4 times every year in person.

A man sitting at a laptop in a virtual meeting.

Mencap can support Voices Council members with access to technology.

A group of people around a large meeting table and a list of things on a piece of paper

What do we do?

The group has an agenda which thinks about different topics that affect people with a learning disability.

Here are some examples:

Strategy
Safeguarding
Campaigns led by Mencap

3 people standing together in a building.

Who do we work with?

The Chair and Vice-Chair of the Voices Council feed back to the Chair of Trustees at Mencap after every meeting.

They also go to the Board of Trustees meetings and talk about what the Voices Council said. An update on these meetings will be given to members of the Voices Council.

As part of this, we also bring pieces of work to the board that are important to the Voices Council. Our mental health paper is a good example of this.

Mary Mawhinney -Exec Director Governance & Company Secretary.

We work closely with the Executive Team at Mencap, including the Chief Executive Officer .

One member of the Executive Team always comes to our meetings.

At least one trustee will be present in our main meetings.

Our Executive Sponsor is the Executive Director of Governance. This is Mary Mawhinney.

Three people sitting at a table talking.

We offer support for other people who do not work for Mencap too.

This could be other charities or other organisations .

A woman is pointing to herself with one hand and has her other hand raised

What you need to know

Everyone on the Voices Council can be a member for 4 years. You can choose to be a member for another 4 years.

This means members can be on the Voices Council for up to 8 years.

Members may also step down at any time if they no longer want to be part of the group.

We will look for new members whenever there are spaces to fill.

I want to find out more

You, or someone who support you, can email: [email protected]

Or call the Inclusion team on: 020 7454 0454.

Our telephone lines are open 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday.

We will arrange to talk to you in a way that works best for you.