Yellow Submarine Charity

Who we are

Yellow Submarine is an award-winning Oxfordshire charity that believes people with learning disabilities and autism deserve to live life to the full.

We tackle the problem that many people with learning disabilities leave school with limited life skills and as a result poor life chances. This often leads to isolation and being marginalised. Our projects start working with young people in community settings from the age of 11 onwards, to build their social skills, confidence, independence and ultimately their employability. At the same time we are supporting families and carers with respite.

We’re unusual in the world of charities (and local authorities) in that with the same team of staff we assist young people on their journey through childhood into adulthood. This allows us, often over many years, to gain both trust and a real insight as to how best to create a person-centered plan to support each individual.

What makes us different? Willingness to go the extra mile. An emphasis on fun. Fresh and innovative approaches which embrace enterprise and technology. That staff member who post their EuroMillions win, says, “I’m staying at my job”. A family feel. We’re unashamedly ambitious to make things better.

The terms “learning disability” and “autism” cover a huge variety of needs. Our specialism is helping individuals with mild to moderate needs- it is unusual for us to provide one-to-one support.

Our projects

For young people (11-18), we run an ambitious school holiday programme, youth clubs, a breakfast club and residential holidays. Our goal is to help teenagers transition into adulthood and therefore able to access mainstream services, socialise independently and engage in meaningful work. In short, to be able to ‘do more’ but to ‘need less’ from the state or charities such as ours.

For adults, we provide real-world training and employment opportunities, a group called Launchpad for young adults to peer-support one another to socialise & use public transport independently and residential holidays throughout the year, which are often young adults’ first sustained time away from home.

Our success achieving our goals has been greatly helped by award-winning social enterprise cafes we run in Oxford and in Witney, which are co-staffed by people with learning disabilities. We have consistently been the number 1 rated restaurant in Oxford on TripAdvisor in 2015. People enter the cafés because of the quality of the coffee & food. It just ‘so happens’ that some 45,000 customers have left the door with a different perception of ‘disability’.

Our structure

We are a small to medium organisation which is primarily volunteer led, with about 30 staff members, including 7 people with learning disabilities. We have a strong and active board of trustees which includes parent representatives, and significant professional expertise. We have been registered as a charity (no. 1136735) since 2010. All our staff, who have completed their induction/training, are paid at least the living wage.