Presentation by Liz Ellis, Natasha Smith and Stuart Ralphson at the fourth ESRC funded seminar on participatory research with people with learning disabilities
Researching together?: reflections on doing participatory research over large distances
1. Researching together?: reflections
on doing participatory research over
large distances.
Liz Ellis: Open University
Stuart Ralphson: Time for Change and Disability
Cornwall
Natasha Smith: Time for Change and Cornwall
County Council
2. Not here today!
• Mark, works with Time
for Change
• John, works for a
supermarket but is also
involved in training
Social workers at the
OU
10. Thank you for listening to our presentation.
We are happy to answer any questions!
Hinweis der Redaktion
Liz: Hi, my name is Liz Ellis and I’m a PhD student here at the Open University.
Natasha: I’m Natasha and I work for Time for Change and I’m a co-researcher on Liz’s project.
Stuart: I’m Stuart and I work for T4C and I’m also a co-researcher on Liz’s project. There are two other co-researchers,
Stuart PPT2:
Stuart PPT2: Mark and John… Mark Works for Time for Change and John works for a supermarket but is also involved in social work training at the OU
Liz: The inclusive research we are going to talk about is part of my PhD research. It is mostly about how people with learning difficulties living in rural places get along in their communities. Rather than do formal interviews, we talked about our lives and experiences as we either walked or drove to places which were meaningful to Natasha, Stuart, Mark and John. This is sometimes called mobile or go-along interviewing.
Liz: Our first question is: PPT3:
Liz: Our first question is: What was the hardest thing about doing the research?
Natasha: Because Liz didn’t know us to begin with and we were not sure what Liz wanted us to do, we were all a bit confused.
Stuart: I would have liked more information on how other people did inclusive research and what they did. This would help me to know how to do it.
Liz: there was a problem with my lack of experience and expectations……
The lessons to take from this are:
Natasha: What works (or doesn’t work) for one group won’t always work (or not work) for another group.
Liz: If you are new to inclusive ……feel comfortable with.
Stuart: People drop out and join research projects, which means that sometimes people miss out on the early work so you have to be flexible.
Liz: Because a lot of past research ……But things have changed a bit now. This leads us onto:
Natasha: The second question is: PPT4: Why would people get involved with inclusive research?
Natasha: The second question is: PPT4: Why would people get involved with inclusive research? I got involved because I wanted to find out things and help out Liz. I also like meeting other people and hearing their stories.
Stuart: I had been involved with another inclusive project about employment with Cornwall People First. I enjoyed doing the project and found it was a good learning experience. Being involved in research also means I sometimes get to travel a bit to conferences like this. Here is a word cloud Liz made: PPT: 5
Stuart: PPT: 5
Liz: The word cloud shows some of the reasons Stuart and Natasha gave for getting involved. But there are other good reasons for non-professional researchers to be involved in research. The main ones are that it…
PPT: 6
PPT6:
Liz: Inclusive research gives groups of people a voice. This has strong links with disability activism. I think doing Inclusive research is also better because it gets to what is really important to the co-researchers and brings an insider perspective that traditional research cannot achieve.
Stuart: Question 3: What problems are there researching in rural places?
Natasha: PPT 7
Natasha: PPT 7 :Transport is really difficult here if you don’t have a car. Buses are not regular and are expensive and so are trains. Liz had to catch a ferry to meet up with Mark!
Stuart: PPT 7:
Stuart: PPT 8: Getting together as a team! This map shows where we all live and how far apart we are
Natasha: We didn’t talk about things all together because we were working one on one with Liz, so me and Stuart couldn’t talk about differences in education for example.
Liz: I think this was one of the biggest problems for me in terms of planning. We wanted to work as a team so we could share experiences and analysis.
……
Researching in rural areas means working with fragmented groups, which means you have to be even more creative and flexible.
Stuart: PPT 9: The last question we had was: What was good about doing the research?
Stuart: PPT 9: The last question we had was: What was good about doing the research? I liked going to all the different places on the trips. I also like being able to go to conferences like these. Here are some of the photos from trips: This is where I used to live, Liz is in the middle in Natasha’s church and the last picture is a plastic bug Natasha and Liz found on one of their trips
Natasha: I like the chance to go to conferences as well. I also like talking about the research and what it means.
Liz: I like doing conferences too! It’s also been really good going to places I’ve never been before and even better getting to know the co-researchers.
Stuart: PPT 10: Thank you and please ask any questions