People with a learning disability are often excluded from research and not enough is done to support people with learning disability to understand and take part in research.
What did the project want to do?
The project wanted to examine the barriers that stop research from including people with a learning disability.
This video tells you more about the aims of the project:
Films produced by CFergusonMedia
This easy-read application summary below tells you everything that the study said it would do when it applied for funding.
The team also made this poster about the project that was shared at the Seattle Club Conference in December 2023.
Who was part of the project?
The project was made up of 25 people including:
- Self-advocates with a learning disability
- Support workers
- National learning disability organisations (including Learning Disability England)
- Accessible communication experts
- Professional researchers
- The National Health Service
It was led by two people:
Dr. Amy M. Russell
Researcher from the
University of Leeds
Gary Bourlet
Membership and Engagement Lead at Learning Disability England
This image above shows where the rest of the team is based in the country
What did the research find out?
As one of the first stages of the research, the team wanted to look through the written evidence of what was happening in other research about inclusion.
Researchers from The University of Warwick and Aston University had done some research they found interesting.
They found there was no accessible version of this research, so they decided to make this easy read.
The project video below tells you all about what the research found and how it went.
Films produced by CFergusonMedia
The team also made this video, with top tips to help other people carry out inclusive research.
Films produced by CFergusonMedia
The research team also found there wasn’t much good accessible information out there on including people with learning disabilities in research projects.
So they created the easy-read booklet below which could be useful for anyone wanting to carry out or be involved in inclusive research with people with learning disabilities.
What else did the project do?
One of the projects smaller working groups looked at a clinical trial called the ‘PANORAMIC’ trial which was to quickly find treatments for people who were ill from Covid-19.
They wanted to see what had been done to make sure people with a learning disability were included and put together some accessible findings (below).
Some of the research team were asked to write an essay for a series from the British Science Association about the importance of bringing missing voices into the research process.
They wrote an essay all about ‘How to ethically share power with public research partners: AKA keeping blobs blobby’.
There is also an easy-read version below.
To find out more about the project you can email Gary or Amy:
a.m.russell@leeds.ac.uk
gary.bourlet@ldengland.org.uk