Learning Disabilities Formulation Toolkit, Intellectual Disability Easy Read Worksheets and Team Booklet

This learning disabilities formulation toolkit gives clinicians, support staff and families three printable resources for understanding and supporting an adult with learning disabilities (intellectual disabilities), including two easy read resources the person fills in with someone they trust.

Formulation is a shared, working understanding of what's happening for someone and why. With a person who has learning disabilities, it starts from their own voice, however they communicate, and then looks at their health, communication, surroundings and the people and services around them. Behavior is read as communication: when someone's behavior changes or worries people, the question isn't "what's wrong with them?" but "what might they be telling us, and what needs to change around them?" Every idea is a best guess, not a label, and the person is presumed able to take part and to make their own decisions.

What's included (3 resources, 21 pages):

Easy read, for the person, with pictures:
- Making Sense of My Feelings: An Easy Read Booklet (10 pages). Feelings cards to color small, medium or big for today; picture cards to check for what makes things hard and what helps; who helps me; how I like to communicate; a feelings plan for each feeling; a weekly page; an easy read page on getting more help and staying safe; and a page for supporters.
- My Communication and Support Profile (2 pages). The person's own guide for anyone new: how they tell you things, how they say yes and no, what their actions mean, how they show pain, how to help them understand, what they like and don't like, what helps when they're upset, and their important people.

For family, staff and clinicians:
- Team Around Me Formulation (9 pages). Starting with the person's own views; a team map; a "Have we checked?" table for health, senses and changes, to guard against diagnostic overshadowing; what the behavior might be telling us, with "I" statements marked as the team's guesses; putting it together, including where views differ; a shared plan for good days, early signs, very hard moments and afterwards; a weekly check-in that looks at quality of life as well as hard moments; and a page on capacity, consent and when to seek more help.

Every resource comes in US Letter and A4, in color and in printer-friendly black and white. Each whole-bundle PDF opens with a contents page.

How to use:
- Start with the person. Use the easy read booklet together, one page at a time, at a calm time and in a place they like. They can write, draw, point or check a box, and they can stop, skip any page and choose who sees it.
- Make the profile with the person, in their words, and with their agreement share it with new staff, day services, college, respite and anyone else new. It isn't a hospital passport and doesn't hold medical information.
- Bring the people around the person together with the team booklet: check health first, look at what behavior might be communicating, agree one shared plan and review it each week. It isn't a functional assessment or a full behavior support plan, and it works alongside one.
- Laws on capacity, consent and safeguarding differ between countries and states. The team booklet uses widely shared principles and asks you to follow your own law and your organization's policies.
- For adults, and older teens preparing for adult life, in adult, respectful language with adult pictures.

Download and printing:
- Instant download: Etsy releases the files as soon as payment is confirmed. Nothing is shipped.
- 5 files: the whole bundle as one PDF in US Letter color, US Letter black and white, A4 color and A4 black and white, plus a ZIP file with each resource as its own PDF, and the pages people often print again (the feelings plan, the weekly page and the weekly check-in). The ZIP is easiest to open on a computer.
- Print at actual size (100%) on US Letter or A4 paper. The profile fits on both sides of one sheet and keeps well in a plastic sleeve.

Usage terms:
- For your own use, and for use with the people you support: you can give printed or digital copies of the pages you use to the person, their family and the staff who support them, and keep filled-in copies in the person's records.
- Please don't resell the files, share the blank files with other clinicians, teams or services, or post or upload them anywhere, including shared drives and intranets. Buying doesn't transfer copyright or reproduction rights.
- The service license lets up to 10 staff in one team or service use and print the resources with the people they support. To buy one (£19), message me on Etsy and I'll set up a private listing for it.
- For larger teams or teaching use, message me on Etsy.

Credits: the team booklet draws on widely shared principles of person-centered and team formulation and on positive behavior support (PBS). Diagnostic overshadowing was first described by Steven Reiss and colleagues. The profile builds on communication passports and person-centered profiles, widely used in learning disability and communication support. The easy read booklet is built on widely shared person-centered and accessible-information principles. This is an independent resource, not affiliated with or endorsed by them or any organization.

This resource supports learning and reflection. It isn't a substitute for professional support.