ILKLEY’S community cafe Outside the Box, which supports people with a learning disability hosted a film crew from the BBC last week and then featured on the channel’s Sunday Morning Live programme.

“We were delighted that the BBC approached us to do a feature about our work,”said Louise Hale, Chief Executive of Ilkley Community Enterprise, the charity that runs Outside the Box. “It is a testament to all our staff, members, volunteers and local supporters that the success story that is Outside the Box is grabbing the attention of the national media. Our fresh approach to working with our local community to support people with a learning disability and the life changing impacts this is delivering is clearly of great interest and we are immensely proud of this.”

The team from the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live programme spent the day at Outside the Box meeting staff, volunteers, members, partner employers and customers at the café. “The team seemed to really enjoy being at the café and were very impressed by the members (people with a learning disability) that they met as well as with our coffee and cake!” said Grace Deione, Support Services Manager at Outside the Box. “They wanted to showcase the achievements of our members and highlight how we help them to learn new skills and develop the confidence to be able to gain employment locally and have more independent and fulfilled lives. One of the team commented that it would be great to have an Outside the Box in every part of the country. So clearly we all made a great impression!”

Outside the Box members filmed for the programme included Imogen Dickinson who has progressed from the café into part-time employment with Specsavers and has also recently started a job at the Ilkley Marks & Spencer store and Emily Moorhouse who secured a job at local supermarket Booths where she has become a highly valued staff member.

The BBC team also visited Booths to film Anna Prosser, an Outside the Box member who has recently started work in Booth’s café. Anna told the BBC that the experience that she had gained from Outside the Box helped give her the confidence and skills to be able to do the job at Booths. Anna told the programme makers that she was “...very happy and proud of myself” and advised people with a learning disability to ‘get out there and have a go’.

Outside the Box run a bespoke project to help people with a learning disability into paid jobs: the OTB Works project links with employers to identify work placements, trails and part-time job opportunities for people with a learning disability. The project has many local and national businesses signed up and is keen to hear from other employers who may wish to get involved.