Residential schools are appropriately placed to provide a wide range of direct services to mainstreamed children with visual impairments. One of these services can be occasional withdrawal to the residential school for teaching skills that are unique to visual impairment, but that are not specifically included in the regular education program.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractThis paper describes the thoughts of three people with learning disabilities about mental health and what can help people stay mentally well.

Purpose -The aim of this paper is to consider risk from the perspective of people with learning disabilities.Design/methodology/approach -The paper explores the thoughts and experiences of two people with learning disabilities around two different areas of potential risk and their participation in a mental health promotion group which has helped.Findings -People with learning disabilities encounter many risks in their lives but with the right support these risks can be managed.Originality/value -The paper adds valuable insight into the life of people with learning disabilities and the risks they face.We are two men with a mild learning disability who went to school together and are still friends. We are both members of the Tuesday group which helps people to understand about good mental health and staying well. We are both independent although we do need some support from outreach or staff visiting our houses. One of the problems we have experienced and a common experience for other people with learning disabilities, is being bothered by people we do not know or want to talk to. This is not people being friendly or saying hello but something unwanted that can be threatening and cause anxiety. Sometimes this can be nasty, one of us has been mugged and we both have experiences of hurtful comments from school kids on the bus and people pestering and begging for money. These experiences are not nice and can lead to panic attacks and not wanting to go out. Sometimes people are hurtful either physically or emotionally and these are hate crimes because people pick us out because they think we are different in a bad way and stupid. Even people who are friendly can sometimes be hurtful when they use old fashioned words to describe people with learning disabilities.In this article we would like to tell people about some of the things we have done and the topics we have discussed in the Tuesday group to deal with the problem and reduce the risk of unwanted attention and to keep safe when we are going out.In the Tuesday group there are two people from the local mental health services who help to run and organise the group and anything from three to eight members. At the group we have made our rules on how we treat each other like listening and taking turns. Also we choose what we want to do with our sessions which last for two hours with a short break and sandwiches and a drink after where we chat. Because many of us have had the problem of being picked on and this had made some people upset and not wanting to go out we decided that we wanted to keep safe. This was done over a period of time some weeks we would have a break and talk about other things and to keep things different we also invites a number of people to come and talk to us to see if they could help. Below is a list of sessions we did and a little bit about it.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.