ARC Association for Real Change  ARC Association for Real Change is a UK membership organisation, which supports providers of services to people with a learning disability. ARC was founded in 1976 as the Association of Residential Communities for the Retarded. For a brief period of time it looked as if 'mental retardation' would come over from the United States as the new terminology to replace 'mental handicap' which was unpopular. However, that did not happen and the term 'learning disability' was adopted by the Department of Health (after much debate and some disagreement which continues to today because the term 'learning disability' has a different meaning in the education world). ARC quickly shortened its name to the Association for Residential Communities and then later to the Association for Residential Care. The most recent change reflects the major policy changes in social care in that ARC (which is how it is known) now stands for The Association for Real Change. ARC was incorporated as a registered charity in 1982. In 1992 the ARC Training Consortium was set up to support members who wanted to increase their own NVQ assessor/verifier capacity and to enable their staff to gain the appropriate NVQs and subsequently the ARC Training Centre. ARC is a UK umbrella organisation that is managed by a Board of Directors; the current Chair is Peter Jung. The Managing Director is Máire Gallagher. ARC has offices in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland with a Country Director managing each office. The previous Chief Executives were Jacqueline Bell, and Mark Gray (Formally the Chair of British Institute for learning disabilities (BILD), who succeeded James Churchill who had steered the organisation for 28 years. ARC provides a wide range of service such as information, qualifications, publications, training and consultation. ARC aims at provision for people with a learning disability and is involved in national and international projects. These projects range from improving management and training programmes and promoting best practices in the learning disability sector to Black and Minority Ethnic projects. ARC is a partner in developing the ECC European Care Certificate. ARC is a registered umbrella body offering a full service to all 4 nation countries, enabling member organisations to obtain Disclosures for their workforce.