1. Lessons Learnt from Researching Together:
Implications for Addressing Health Inequalities
Ruth Northway
Professor of Learning Disability Nursing
June 2014
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2. Research Generally: Pressure to work together Specifically:
More people with learning disabilities involved as researchers
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3. My Starting Points I thought I knew about research
I had not thought about the role that people with learning disabilities play in research
I had not questioned what I had been taught
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4. Looking into Abuse Team
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5. Lesson 1
There is a difference between someone not being ‘able’ to do something and not having the chance and the support to do something
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6. Lesson 2 How we do research can be as important as what we research
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7. Lesson 3 It is important to work as a team
We all bring different things to a team
Building a team can take time
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8. Lesson 4
Different people will have different ideas of what is important
They will also have different ways of doing things
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9. They may think it doesn’t fit in with the ‘rules’
Lesson 6
Sometimes other people don’t understand why it is important to do research differently
They may think it doesn’t fit in with the ‘rules’
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10. It is important to be flexible It is important to be creative
Lesson 7
It is important to be flexible
It is important to be creative
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11. Lesson 8 There is a lot for all of us to learn
We must not stop learning
We can never know it all
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12. But things have changed……
Healthcare
Traditional Research
Professionals ‘know best’
Services do not make reasonable adjustments to include people with learning disabilities
People with learning disabilities excluded
Researcher as expert
People with learning disabilities seen as ‘unable’ to do research
People with learning disabilities excluded
But things have changed……
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13. Health Inequalities? Who decides what is important?
Who decides what we do about them?
Are there things we don’t know?
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14. Health Inequalities?
If we do research together we bring together different skills and knowledge
What we find out is more likely to be useful
We can use this information to work together to change things
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15. Contact: Ruth Northway ruth.northway@southwales.ac.uk
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