Darlene Corry from Disability Action NI is talking about her research “Is it Me?: How do attitudes within the social care system impact up on independent living choices.” She is joined by one of the research partners, Paul Rooney from the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.

This important piece of research tackles two major issues head on – attitudes, which significantly impact on disabled people’s daily lives; and adult social care, which exists to support people to live as independently as possible. What happens in practice is what this research is gathering.

This research will explore what attitudes and behaviours disabled people are experiencing from social care staff as well as from the policies and practices in place within the social care system, as well as what impacts these attitudes have, positive or negative, on disabled peoples’ lived experiences of independent living. The voices of social care workers and social workers will also give context to the challenges and supports they face in their work.  Is it Me? will provide key findings about what is working well and should be supported, and what is not working well and needs to be addressed, alongside evidence based recommendations for change.

The hope is for this research to become a useful tool for disabled people, their allies and organisations, social care workers and managers, policy and decision makers and others to improve attitudes within the social care system; and to improve how disabled people rights’ for choice and control over their independent living can be more effectively met.

The research data has now been gathered – this includes:

• 4 focus groups with disabled people, and 1 focus group with social care managers
• 15 interviews with disabled people
• 552 responses to an online survey by social care workers and social workers

This research is being analysed and written up now. The co-production research partnership, led by disabled people, has been working closely with the researcher from the outset of this project to co-produce this report. We are looking to get the report out for the end of October / beginning of November.

This research project is is one of 32 UK wide pieces of research co-produced by disabled people is funded by DRILL – the biggest programme in the world of research led by disabled people.  It is supported by a co-production research partnership, made up of disability rights activists and academics who have been working closely with the researcher from the outset of this project to co-produce this report. The other partner for this piece of research is the DRILL National Advisory Group, supporting the five pieces of DRILL research coming out of Northern Ireland.

Here is this tv interview link: about DRILL research in progress

https://vimeo.com/353783817

To get in touch with the researcher, please contact:

darlenecorry@disabilityaction.org