Minstead Trust Knowledge Transfer Partnership

Background

In line with an overall UK ageing population, adults with a learning disability are also living longer (Office of National Statistics, 2021). Indeed, there is a predicted 30% rise in adults with learning disabilities aged 50+ requiring social care services in England, which will inevitably include various forms of accommodation support as ageing family carers struggle to fulfil their caring role (Kruithof et al, 2021; Gilbert et al, 2007).

Meanwhile, there is a paucity of research that explores the accommodation support services this population can and do access as they age, how such services can be developed and improved, and the extent to which commissioners are planning for the needs of this growing population (Tiley et al, 2023).

Project

The University of Essex has formed a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Minstead Trust. Minstead Trust is a charity in Hampshire, which works in collaboration with people with learning disabilities and their family carers, to enable them to achieve greater independence and live happier and healthier lives. One of their main areas of work is accommodation support. As they move into adult accommodation support services, adults with a learning disability, their family carers, and Minstead Trust accommodation support staff form a tripartite relationship through which support is planned and delivered. However, to date practices in support provision have differed, leading to miscommunications and some areas of inconsistency and discontinuity in provided support and living circumstances. These are sector wide issues, which ultimately impact service users’ participation in the various activities and occupations that provide meaning, purpose, and routine within their everyday lives. They also contribute to broader system issues, such as carer burnout and workforce retention.

The project will co-produce distinct new ways of working through using a participatory action research approach, which involves people with a learning disability, their family carers, and Minstead Trust accommodation support staff. Uniquely, participatory action research involves doing research with rather than on people, with the research team working together through cycles of planning, action, and reflection, to explore issues that impact their lives (Pettican et al, 2022). The academic research team will collaborate with Minstead Trust through using innovative participatory research methods, which will help to identify current communication issues and other shortcomings, from the perspectives of adults with a learning disability, their family carers, and accommodation support staff. Using experiential, embodied methods such as theatre of the oppressed allows for non-verbal as well as spoken forms of communication and will facilitate increased safety for participants to share their challenges. Such collaborative work will then enable the co-production and testing of distinct new ways of working and other novel solutions.

The project involves partnership work with several other organisations to ensure tangible knowledge mobilisation and impact. For example, the Association for Real Change, Learning Disability England, Centre 404, and the Applied Research Collaboration East of England Carer Research Network (ACORN). It has six inter-connected stages:

1. Establish a co-produced approach with the Minstead Trust stakeholders 
2. Participatory mapping: Developing a shared understanding of the issues
3. Co-producing new ways of working
4. External implementation of the new ways of working: Developing a community of practice
5. Reporting, final documentation preparation
6. Consolidation and evaluation

Funding

This project has been funded by Innovate UK.