Just across the border in Northern Ireland, the work of the organsition Positive Futures is the feature of this week's World View. Positive Futures is a charity set up in 1995 to support people with intellectual disabilites and those who care for them.

One of their programmes is the Adult Placement service. This service asks volunteers to open their doors to adults with learning difficulties offering to provide respite care as often as they can so as to relieve their primary carers. Twenty-five year old Kellie Rafferty from Ballymena has Down syndrome.  Her round the clock supervision falls on her grandmother, Helen who is now age 70 but has cared for Kellie since she was 4 years of age.

Kellie and her grandmother had lived in Scotland where they had benefitted from access to a certain level of respite care for Kellie, allowing Helen a little freedom. But on moving back to Northern Ireland after her husband died, Helen had no respite support for over a year.

With the help of Positive Futures, Kellie now goes to stay with a volunteer family who have two teenage children, one weekend of every month. Initially Helen found it daunting to hand her child over to someone else and trust them to look after her but Kellie now loves going to stay with the family and Helen and her partner look forward to the freedom it provides them. While the placement family describe the time they spend caring for Kellie as rewarding and their way to give a little back for the luck they have had in their lives.

The service always need more supporters but the fantastic work that its volunteers already provide will generate lasting friendships which will offer great solace to parents of young adults with intellectual disability as they grow older.     

One of the hardest coping experiences for people with intellectual disability occurs when they loose their primary carers which is often followed by a move into either residential or community care. A programme such as this would go a long way to developing real and lasting friendships for people with Down syndrome - and other learning disabilities - amongst people concerned for their wellbeing.