Getting Good Support

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    'Getting Good Support' is Strand 1 of a large ESRC project: 'Tackling Disabling Practices: co-production and change'

  • IRAS ID

    189907

  • Contact name

    Val Williams

  • Contact email

    v.williams@bristol.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Bristol

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    2 years, 4 months, 29 days

  • Research summary

    This research is about everyday interactions involving two groups of people: a) those with dementia; b) young people with learning disabilities. In both cases, our interest is in their interactions with paid support staff. We know that there is much good practice, but also that bad practice and abuse still happen. It seems hard to understand how to translate policy into practice in this area. We therefore wish to address the following questions:
    a) How do interactions between disabled people and care/support staff allow the
    disabled person to have an equal voice (and what prevents that)?
    b) How can young people with learning disabilities be supported well so that
    they learn the skills for choice and control (and what prevents that)?
    c)Can workers learn how to improve their practices through video interaction
    analysis?
    d)Are there any key differences in practices with people with dementia, and
    young people with learning disabilities?
    This strand of research is part of a larger project, in which we aim to learn more about disabling and problematic social practices, and to develop useful theories that can help us to know how to make changes. We have developed the wider project in collaboration with DRUK (Disability Rights UK) and we will include disabled people as co-producers of the research in this strand.
    We will collect video data of naturally occurring interactions in people's own homes, and will focus on support staff communicating with disabled people. The data will be analysed using a 'conversation analysis' (CA) approach, seeking insights into the way interactions can assist and facilitate decision-making amongst disabled people. We will then take edited videos back to support staff and disabled people, to help them learn from their own videos. We want to find out if this type of micro-analysis can help us understand how social practices change and improve.

  • REC name

    Social Care REC

  • REC reference

    15/IEC08/0063

  • Date of REC Opinion

    7 Jan 2016

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion