Ascentis · RQF Level 3
Ascentis Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Individuals with Learning Disabilities (QCF)
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 3
- Total credits23
- Guided learning120 hours
- Units in this qualification47
Awarded by Ascentis · on the Ofqual register
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See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
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About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
These are the units Ascentis registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Enable individuals to negotiate environmentsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the factors that may impact on an individual being able to negotiate their environments
- Prepare to support an individual to negotiate an environment
- Support the individual to negotiate an environment
- Evaluate and revise the support provided to an individual to negotiate an environment
Enable individuals with behavioural difficulties to develop strategies to change their behaviourReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how legislation, policies and practice affect the support provided to individuals to manage their behaviour.
- Understand the factors that influence behaviour.
- Work with individuals to recognise the impact of their behaviour on others
- Enable people to develop strategies for changing behavioural responses
- Evaluate and review strategies for changing behavioural responses
Facilitate learning and development activities to meet individual needs and preferencesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the role of learning and development activities in meeting individual needs
- Identify learning and development activities to meet individual needs and preferences
- Plan learning and development activities with individuals
- Prepare for learning and development activities
- Facilitate learning and development activities with individuals
- Evaluate and review learning and development activities
Implement the positive behavioural support modelReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the context of the Positive Behavioural Support model.
- Understand the term ‘challenging behaviour’.
- Understand the context in which challenging behaviour occurs.
- Contribute to the functional analysis in relation to an individual's challenging behaviour.
- Understand the key characteristics of Positive Behavioural Support.
- Implement primary prevention strategies.
- Use a person centred approach to develop plans that promote participation.
- Implement secondary prevention strategies.
- Implement non aversive reactive strategies.
Maintaining the Independent Advocacy relationshipReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Know what to do when faced with practice dilemmas
- Deal positively with conflict
- Maintain accurate records
- Prioritise competing work commitments
- Use personal value base and power appropriately
- Use supervision as a tool to reflect and improve practice
- Use local and national networks
- Respond to concerns of abuse
Prepare to support individuals within a shared lives arrangementReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how shared lives arrangements can benefit individuals
- Access and share information relevant to the provision of a shared lives arrangement for individuals
- Address the potential impact on key people of providing a shared lives arrangement
- Carry out an analysis of own development needs before supporting an individual in a shared lives arrangement
Principles of self-directed supportReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand self-directed support
- Understand how to support an individual to direct their own support and develop their support plan
- Understand the different ways that people can use their personal budget
- Understand the outcome focused review process
Principles of supporting an individual to maintain personal hygieneReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of good personal hygiene
- Encourage an individual to maintain personal hygiene
- Support an individual to maintain personal hygiene
- Understand when poor hygiene may be an indicator of other underlying personal issues
Principles of supporting individuals with a learning disability regarding sexuality and sexual healthReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the development of human sexuality
- Understand how the sexual development of individuals’ with a learning disability can differ
- Understand the issues of sexual health and how these can be supported
- Understand relevant legislation influencing the support of sexuality and sexual health for individuals with learning disabilities
- Support the sexual expression of an individual with a learning disability
Principles of supporting young people with a disability to make the transition into adulthoodReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the steps and stages of moving from childhood into adulthood.
- Understand how having a disability may affect the process of moving from childhood into adulthood.
- Know the options for supporting a young person who has a disability to make the transition into adulthood.
- Understand how to support a young person with a disability through a successful transition.
- Understand the importance of supporting a young person and their family to reflect on the transition.
Promote active supportReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how active support translates values into person-centred practical action with an individual
- Interact positively with individuals to promote participation
- Develop and implement person-centred daily plans to promote participation
- Use person-centred records to evaluate an individual’s participation in activities
Promote communication in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settingsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand why effective communication is important in the work setting
- Meet the communication and language needs, wishes and preferences of individuals
- Overcome barriers to communication
- Apply principles and practices relating to confidentiality
Promote positive behaviourReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how legislation, frameworks, codes of practice and policies relate to positive behaviour support.
- Understand the context and use of proactive and reactive strategies.
- Promote positive behaviour.
- Respond appropriately to incidents of challenging behaviour.
- Support individuals and others following an incident of challenging behaviour.
- Review and revise approaches to promoting positive behaviour.
Provide support for individuals within a shared lives arrangementReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand how to establish the needs, background, experiences, wishes, preferences and choices of an individual
- Identify how an individual’s needs can be met through a shared lives arrangement
- Address potential power imbalances in a shared lives arrangement
- Assist individuals to adjust to the home environment
- Support key people to adjust to a shared lives arrangement
- Contribute to on-going review of the shared lives arrangement
Provide support to maintain and develop skills for everyday lifeReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the context of supporting skills for everyday life
- Support individuals to plan for maintaining and developing skills for everyday life
- Support individuals to retain, regain or develop skills for everyday life
- Evaluate support for developing or maintaining skills for everyday life
Providing Independent Advocacy supportReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Establish safe boundaries to maintain the Advocacy relationship
- Establish the Advocacy relationship
- Assist the individual receiving Advocacy support to explore and make choices
- Construct an action plan
- Support the individual receiving Advocacy support to self advocate
- Act on the instruction of the person receiving Advocacy support
- Review and end the Advocacy relationship
Purpose and principles of Independent AdvocacyReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand Independent Advocacy
- Explain principles and values underpinning Independent Advocacy
- Describe the development of Advocacy
- Explain different types of Advocacy support and their purpose
- Understand the roles and responsibilities of an Independent Advocate
- Understand Advocacy standards
Support Individuals With Specific Communication NeedsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand specific communication needs and factors affecting them
- Contribute to establishing the nature of specific communication needs of individuals and ways to address them
- Interact with individuals using their preferred communication
- Promote communication between individuals and others
- Support the use of communication technology and aids
- Review an individual’s communication needs and the support provided to address them
Support families in maintaining relationships in their wider social structuresReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of social interactions and relationships for families of people with specific needs
- Understand the issues surrounding discrimination
- Support families to access opportunities for social contact within their wider social structures
- Support families to maintain social contacts within their wider social structures
Support families who have a child with a disabilityReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the impact on a family of having a child with a disability
- Support families who have a child with a disability
- Support families with a child with a disability to use informal networks and community resources
- Work in partnership with other professionals and agencies to support families with a child with a disability
Support individuals during a period of changeReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand reasons for and responses to change
- Support individuals to plan how to manage or adapt to change
- Support individuals to manage or adapt to change
- Evaluate the support provided during a period of change
Support individuals in the use of assistive technologyReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the range, purpose and effectiveness of assistive technology available to support individuals
- Support the selection of assistive technology with individuals
- Support the use of assistive technology aids with an individual
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the use of assistive technology to meet identified outcomes
Support individuals in their relationshipsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand factors affecting the capacity of individuals to develop and/or maintain relationships.
- Support individuals to identify beneficial relationships.
- Support individuals to develop new relationships.
- Support individuals to maintain existing relationships.
- Work with individuals to review the support provided for relationships.
Support individuals to access and use services and facilitiesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand factors that influence individuals’ access to services and facilities
- Support individuals to select services and facilities
- Support individuals to access and use services and facilities
- Support individuals’ to review their access to and use of services and facilities
Support individuals to access education, training or employmentReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the value of engagement in training, education or employment for individuals
- Understand how legislation, guidance and codes of practice support an individual to access training, education or employment
- Understand the support available to individuals accessing education, training or employment
- Support an individual to identify and access education, training or employment that meet needs and preferences
- Support individuals to undertake education, training or employmen
- Evaluate engagement in education, training or employment
Support individuals to access housing and accommodation servicesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand support available to access housing and accommodation services
- Work with individuals to identify housing and accommodation services that meet their needs
- Work with individuals to plan to access housing and accommodation services
- Work with individuals to access housing and accommodation services
- Work with housing and accommodation services to meet the needs of individuals
- Contribute to the review of housing and accommodation services for individuals
Support individuals to maintain personal hygieneReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of good personal hygiene
- Support individuals to maintain personal hygiene
- Understand when poor hygiene may be an indicator of other underlying personal issues
Support individuals to manage their financesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Access information and advice about financial affairs
- Provide support for individuals to manage their finances
- Contribute to applying for financial assistance
- Contribute to reviewing support for managing finances
Support individuals to prepare for and settle in to new home environmentsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand factors affecting a move to a new home environment
- Support individuals to prepare to move into new home environments
- Support individuals to settle into new home environments
- Support individuals to review the impact of new home environments
Support individuals with a learning disability to access healthcareReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand legislation, policies and guidance relevant to individuals with learning disabilities accessing healthcare
- Understand the function of different healthcare services that an individual with learning disabilities may need to access
- Understand the role of professionals within different healthcare services that a person with learning disabilities may need to access
- Understand how plans for healthcare and regular health checks underpin long-term health and well-being for individuals with learning disabilities
- Complete and review plans for healthcare
- Understand the issues t
Support individuals with multiple conditions and/or disabilitiesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the impact of multiple conditions and/or disabilities on individuals
- Understand own role in supporting individuals with multiple conditions and/or disabilities
- Understand the support available for individuals with multiple conditions and/or disabilities
- Assist individuals with multiple conditions and/or disabilities
- Evaluate the support provided to an individual to engage in activities
Support individuals with self-directed supportReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand self-directed support
- Understand how to support individuals to direct their own support and develop their support plan
- Understand the different ways that individuals can use their personal budget
- Support individuals to direct their support
- Support individuals to use their personal budget in different ways
- Support individuals with an outcome-focused review
Support parents with disabilitiesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the legislative and policy frameworks that underpins good practice in the support of parents with disabilities
- Understand the support parents with disabilities may need
- Support parents with disabilities
- Support individuals with disabilities to overcome the barriers they may face in becoming parents and bringing up children
- Develop positive working relationships with parents with disabilities
- Work in partnership with other workers, different services and informal support networks
- Understand how to maintain the primary focus on safegua
Support person-centred thinking and planningReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the principles and practice of person-centred thinking, planning and reviews.
- Understand the context within which person-centred thinking and planning takes place.
- Understand own role in person-centred planning.
- Apply person-centred planning in relation to own life.
- Implement person-centred thinking, planning and reviews.
Support positive risk taking for individualsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of risk taking in everyday life
- Understand the importance of a positive, person-centred approach to risk assessment
- Understand the legal and policy framework underpinning an individual’s right to make decisions and take risks
- Support individuals to make decisions about risks
- Support individuals to take risks
- Understand duty of care in relation to supporting positive risk-taking
Support young people with a disability to make the transition into adulthoodReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the steps and stages of moving from childhood into adulthood
- Understand how having a disability may affect the process of moving from childhood into adulthood
- Know the options for supporting a young person who has a disability to make the transition into adulthood
- Support a young person with a disability through transition into adulthood
- Support a young person to reflect on the transition
Understand Models of DisabilityReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the difference between models of disability
- Understand how the adoption of models of disability can shape an individual’s identity and experience
- Understand how the adoption of models of disability can shape service delivery
Understand Physical DisabilityReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the importance of differentiating between the individual and the disability
- Understand the concept of physical disability
- Understand the impact of living with a physical disability within society
- Understand the importance of promoting inclusion and independence
Understand Sensory LossReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the factors that impact on an individual with sensory loss
- Understand the importance of effective communication for individuals with sensory loss
- Understand the main causes and conditions of sensory loss
- Recognise when an individual may be experiencing sight and / or hearing loss and actions that may be taken
Understand how to support individuals with autistic spectrum conditionsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the main characteristics of autistic spectrum conditions
- Understand how autistic spectrum conditions can impact on the lives of individuals and those around them
- Understand different theories and concepts about autism
- Understand the legal and policy framework that underpins good practice in the support of individuals with autistic spectrum conditions
- Understand how to achieve effective communication with individuals with an autistic spectrum condition
- Understand how to support individuals with an autistic spectrum condition
Understand mental health problemsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Know the main forms of mental ill health
- Know the impact of mental ill health on individuals and others in their social network
Understand mental well-being and mental health promotionReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the different views on the nature of mental well-being and mental health and the factors that may influence both across the life span
- Implement an effective strategy for promoting mental well-being and mental health with individuals and groups
Understand positive risk taking for individuals with disabilitiesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand that individuals with disabilities have the same right as everyone else to take risks
- Understand the importance of a positive, person-centred approach to risk assessment
- Understand the legal and policy framework underpinning an individual with disabilities right to make decisions and take risks
- Understand the importance of considering with an individual with disabilities the risks associated with the choices they make
- Understand the importance of a partnership approach to risk taking
Understand the context of supporting individuals with learning disabilitiesReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the legislation and policies that support the human rights and inclusion of individuals with learning disabilities
- Understand the nature and characteristics of learning disability
- Understand the historical context of learning disability
- Understand the basic principles and practice of advocacy, empowerment and active participation in relation to supporting individuals with learning disabilities and their families
- Understand how views and attitudes impact on the lives of individuals with learning disabilities and their family carers
- Promote communication with individu
Understand the diversity of individuals with dementia and the importance of inclusionReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the concept of diversity and its relevance to working with individuals who have dementia.
- Understand that each individual’s experience of dementia is unique.
- Understand the importance of working in a person centred way and how this links to inclusion.
Understand the process and experience of dementiaReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the neurology of dementia.
- Understand the impact of recognition and diagnosis of dementia.
- Understand how dementia care must be underpinned by a person centred approach.
Work in partnership with families to support individualsReal unit · Ascentis
What you'll be able to do
- Understand partnership working with families
- Establish and maintain positive relationships with families
- Plan shared approaches to the care and support of individuals with families
- Work with families to access support in their role as carers
- Exchange and record information about partnership work with families
- Contribute to reviewing partnership work with families
- Provide feedback about support for families
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 3 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Enable individuals to negotiate environmentsEnable individuals with behavioural difficulties to develop strategies to change their behaviourFacilitate learning and development activities to meet individual needs and preferencesImplement the positive behavioural support modelMaintaining the Independent Advocacy relationshipPrepare to support individuals within a shared lives arrangementPrinciples of self-directed supportPrinciples of supporting an individual to maintain personal hygiene
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
Ascentis Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Individuals with Learning Disabilities (QCF)
- Assist customers to move and settle into new living environments
- Assist individuals to use agencies and services
- Develop relationships with individuals with long term conditions
- Support individuals to manage change in their lives
Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
Assist customers to move and settle into new living environmentsAssist individuals to use agencies and servicesDevelop relationships with individuals with long term conditionsSupport individuals to manage change in their lives
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
One-to-one, on your real workNo lectures, no past-papers. Every unit is practised on the actual tasks your job throws at you, a tutor beside you, not a video in front of you.
Taught to the top, not the testMost courses stop at remembering. Your companion keeps climbing: analysing, judging, creating. That’s the part a machine can’t do for you.
Credits you keep, a map that continuesEvery unit is regulated and yours for good. The day you finish, Zavmo already knows the next role your new credits open.
Applied to your own work
How the thinking builds
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for Ascentis Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Individuals with Learning Disabilities (QCF)
47 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Ascentis.
- Enable individuals to negotiate environments
- Enable individuals with behavioural difficulties to develop strategies to change their behaviour
- Facilitate learning and development activities to meet individual needs and preferences
- Implement the positive behavioural support model
- Maintaining the Independent Advocacy relationship
- Prepare to support individuals within a shared lives arrangement
and 41 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
Why this matters: AI can already remember and understand for you. What it can’t do is
take your real problem and judge the right call. So the only learning worth paying
for is the learning that takes you to the top. That’s exactly what a tutor doing it with
you, on your real work, is for.
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.