Minority Interest
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Minority Interest: Working to improve the cultural competency of supported living and residential care for adults with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities
IRAS ID
349611
Contact name
Chris Hatton
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
There is little research about how good supported living and residential care services are at supporting people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities. However, we do know that some communities can have poor experiences of social care services due, in part, to a lack of cultural competency and staff not knowing how best to support people from minority ethnic communities. Therefore, the overall aim of the project is to produce evidence-based resources to improve the cultural competency of supported living and residential care services supporting people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities.
The research will:
• Explore what cultural competency means to people with learning disabilities and support staff and how it impacts on their support,
• Identify key barriers/success factors in the delivery of culturally competent services and collate examples of culturally competent service support,
• Examine how the intersection of ethnicity and disability impacts on people’s lives and either shapes, or is ignored by, people’s support.Alongside a rapid review of existing evidence, the research involves Quality Checks to understand the quality of life of 40 people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities living in residential care or supported living services across 6 service providers in England; workshops with 6 existing groups of people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities; workshops with 3 local authorities that commission social care; workshops with support staff in each core participating provider organisation; interviews in each provider organisation with those responsible for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Findings will be used to develop and pilot action learning training for social care staff within the 6 participating service provider organisations, with an evaluation to understand what (if any) difference it makes to staff and the people they support, and publicly available training, policy and practice resources will be co-produced and shared.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
25/YH/0074
Date of REC Opinion
16 Apr 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion