The purpose of this guide is to help disabled people to live to their full potential: to live as normal a life as possible. In order to do so it is necessary

• To know what is available, for example: support; opportunities for leisure, recreation and learning; employment; ‘benefits’.
  
  
• To learn what other disabled people have been able to achieve.

The guide is intended to be an information pathway, taking you in steps through the processes involved in getting the support you need so that you may be able to achieve your aims and aspirations. If you proceed along this pathway for the first time fairly quickly, you will get a good general idea of what you should be thinking about. However, you should then repeat the process more slowly, pausing from time to time to explore some of the links to other websites. These links provide much more detail about various aspects of the processes involved in achieving your aims.

Picking the links which are of most interest to you will introduce you to many new topics and ideas, and will help you to work out how best to organise your life.

What you want to do will change over time. As you begin to achieve your initial goals, your aims and aspirations will change - and hopefully become more ambitious. The guide is written with this in mind. However for older people and for younger people whose condition is deteriorating, the opposite is likely to be true: but at least some of the material should also be helpful to people in this situation.

So, do begin your journey along the pathway now. Good Luck!