Operation Money Maker - Lets raise £70,000 for our 70th Platinum Jubilee Year - click for details

About Us

West Berkshire Mencap exists to provide high quality services for people with learning disabilities, their families, carers and professionals. We have been in existence for over 60 years.

We listen to our users requirements and are able to tailor our services flexibly and speedily to ensure that the people that we support are able to get the service they need.

Bubble Club is often a parent’s first point of call when they realise that their child may have a learning disability. Here they get support from other parents and carers as well as advice from one of our Family Advisors.

The Family Advisor Service provides support, advice and information to people with a learning disability, their families and professionals working with them. The West Berkshire Mencap Family Advisor Service also offers individual support to parents, carers and service users, which is tailor made to each individual.

Once a child has started at Bubble Club they have a route of many different services to be involved with including playschemes, after school clubs, holidays etc.

Adults can come along to the Gateway Club, which is held at the Mencap Centre in Newbury (every week) as well as in Beenham and Hungerford (every other week). These clubs are a very popular meeting place for people with learning disabilities to enjoy their evening with friends.
Other leisure activities for adults, run by Leisure Plus, include outreach work, projects in the community, independent living skills, drama, sports, cinema trips and many more.

Link Up is our sheltered employment and training scheme based in Bone Lane in Newbury. It provides a real work environment for adults with learning disabilities to enable them to progress onto work experience placement or work.

Our newly built horticultural and social inclusion facility, adjacent to the main Mencap Centre, currently provides opportunities for members to enjoy growing flowers and vegetables as well as learning woodworking skills.  Over the summer of 2023 the site will complete the pottery unit and crafting facilities.  This brand new site will offer so much more than our previous horticultural project at Cottesmore, we continue to fundraise to reach completion and to further develop these exciting opportunities for our members. We would be delighted if you could support this project with a donation, simply click the ‘donate’ button.  We look forward to seeing you at our ‘open days’ as the year progresses when we welcome our neighbours and wider community to explore, shop and enjoy this facility with us.

We have also have a Care Quality Commission registered Domiciliary Care Agency called Your Choice Services which provides support and care to adults and children in their own homes and out in the community.

Heffernan House is West Berkshire Mencap’s supported living unit which was established 2011 with support from Greenham Common Trust, and contains 7 flats providing homes for people with a learning disability.

“I love it here, it is really, really great. I love the people. I feel I really matter now” – Paul Carter talking about his work placement at Trindledown (animal sanctuary)