Self Harm
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Everyone can manage to injure or hurt themselves by accident.
Self Harm means hurting yourself on purpose. This may be due to the condition the person has or an extreme form of emtional release.
It can be a diffficult and challenging behaviour to deal with, especially for those supporting the individual.
The starting point should be a consideration of why the individual is harming themselves.
A number of conditions associated with learning disability do increase the chances of individuals doing this act, however the reasons should always be investigated.
'Just' assuming that the indiviudal is self harming because they have a learning disability may be missing an important sign of mental health problems, ongoing abuse or other physical health issues.
There are resources available to help.
An easy to read resource from the Norah Fry Research Centre and Bristol Crisis Service for Women is available here
The organisations websites are listed on the right.
SELF HARM SUPPORT
A number of organisations can help with self harm.
Although not all of these will be used to dealing with people with a learning disability the ones in this section are.
The Bristol Crisis Service for Women are working on a project with the Norah Fry Centre at Brisol University regarding learning disability and self harm
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