Learning disability Trustees support offer
Support offer for a volunteer Mencap Trustee with a learning disability
About our support
This document shows the support available from the Governance team for Trustees with a learning disability A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things. who are on the Royal Mencap Society Board.
We really want to support you as much as we can to make sure you have an amazing, interesting and fulfilling time as a trustee at Mencap. We will complete an All About Me plan together so that we can learn more about you! If you have a diagnosis A diagnosis is when a medical professional like a doctor has said you have a certain illness or condition. of another disability, it could be helpful to share this. This is to make sure that we can support you as much as we can.
We really welcome reasonable adjustments. These need to be agreed with the Chair of the Board of Trustees and Governance Inclusion Lead.
If you have questions about the support that we provide, this is OK. Please ask.
General notes about the Board of Trustee meetings and support
- You will need to attend the Board of Trustee meetings in person. They are 4 times a year in London. One meeting is usually outside of London.
- You may be on a Trustee Committee. These are online on Microsoft Teams.
- All meetings you are invited to should be attended where you can.
- Mencap cannot take
responsibility
Responsibility is managing or being in charge of something.
for 1-2-1 support for Trustees. This includes when you are travelling to and from the meeting and any time that you are away from home. You will need to find support yourself to attend the meeting, or we can try to find a
volunteer
A volunteer is someone who helps out by doing work for free.
Travel Buddy. We will keep this under review. - If you need access to the internet you will have to find this. We can give you a Mencap laptop to help you to do your role.
Before the meeting
- We will support you to join the meeting if it is online.
- We will support you to read the papers for the meetings before they happen.
- We will give you as much information as we can to allow you to prepare for the meeting. We will give you the paperwork for the meeting at least 5 working days’ before the meeting. This is so that you can ask questions and understand it.
- We will support you to think and come up with your ideas for the meetings. This is so that you can give your voice to the topics that are on the meeting
agenda
An agenda is a list of things to talk about at a meeting.
. - You will be responsible for approving or not approving items on the agenda as a Trustee. We will help you to understand these approvals.
- There will be an inclusive summary of the meeting minutes for the Committee meetings.
Travel to the meeting
- We will support you to plan the route you need to take to travel to the meeting if you need help with it.
- We can book your travel and accommodation for you or you can book your train ticket yourself and claim the money back. The accommodation will be booked for the night before the meeting happens. Mencap will only pay for the travel and accommodation for 1 supporter to come with you.
- The train ticket booked for you will be a standard class ticket or off peak if available. We will ask you to find the cheapest route. A Premier Inn hotel room will be booked if you need it. This is 1 for you and 1 for the supporter the night before the meeting.
- Assisted travel on your journey must be booked with the transport provider by yourself.
- Members and supporters can claim back money for their dinner for the night before the meeting if they are travelling the day before. This up to the value of £20.00 each.
- All expenses Expenses means the money you spend to buy things or pay for services. that are claimed will be in line with our Mencap policy.
During the meeting
- We will accommodate the reasonable adjustments in the meeting that you have agreed beforehand with us.
- We will send you an easy read Easy Read is a way of making written information easier to understand. Pictures are usually added next to the writing. agenda and audio agenda before the meeting.
- We will ask speakers to give an
accessible
Accessible means something is easy for people to use or join in with. For example: Accessible writing means the writing is easy to read and understand.
presentation and to answer your questions. - We will work with the Chair of Board of Trustees to help make sure that they ask for your contributions in the meeting. It is helpful when we discuss the agenda items to let us know if you would like to say something about a topic on the agenda. This means that we can tell the Chair about this.
- We will provide lunch for Board meetings. You will need to get your own lunch for a committee meeting. You can claim this money back.
- We do not take responsibility for any medication that you need to take at the meeting.
Outside of the meetings
- You will have a thorough trustee
induction
An induction is when someone shows you where things are and what you need to know. You will get an induction if you start a new job at Mencap.
with the Executive Director of Governance and Chair of the Board of Trustees. This will be supported by the Governance Inclusion Lead and other Governance colleagues. - You will have to attend some other meetings. These are not the Board meetings. These might not be planned. Some of these meetings will be confidential Confidential means something is private. . We will tell you when these happen.
If you have any other support needs we are very happy to talk about with you and see how we can help you.
This resource was first published in April 2026.
Last updated: 22.04.2026