Kent’s Tizard Centre is among the partners working with creative arts company Heart n Soul on a new project that aims to improve health care services – through co-design processes – for people with learning disabilities or autism in London.
Heart n Soul has been awarded Common Ambition funding by The Health Foundation and will run the project in partnership with Tizard, Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Borough of Greenwich, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Inclusive Design and University of the Arts London (UAL) Creative Computing Institute.
Professor Chrissie Rogers, (Director of Tizard) along with colleagues Dr Damian Milton and Beckie Whelton are to lead the research/evaluation arm of the project. It is envisaged this research will be creative, exploratory and will evidence everyday positive and challenging practices related to physical and emotional health.
Heart n Soul said: ‘Health care services can be difficult for people to navigate; they are even more confusing and overwhelming for people with learning disabilities and autistic people with and without learning disabilities (PWLDA). They often feel invisible, overlooked and unheard; many have negative experiences of health care, and very low expectations of their needs being met.’ […] ‘Discrimination and stigma means that PWLDA’s health needs may not be assessed and treated adequately, and a lack of “whole person” approaches can mean that some health care professionals don’t see real health problems, and only see the disability or stereotypes relating to it.
‘These issues have been compounded by COVID-19. Recent statistics show that PWLDA have up to four times greater risk of death from COVID-19 than the general population. While the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated health inequalities, it also offers an opportunity to be more ambitious, to re-contexualise relationships between PWLDA and health and social care professionals, and radically reimagine services.’
Over two years, a range of activities will look to improve quality of listening, creating space in which people with learning disabilities and autistic people with and without learning disabilities and professionals can share experiences and decision-making, empower action around service redesign, and develop new ways of learning together. The project leads believe that people with learning disabilities and autistic people with and without learning disabilities can thrive when they are at the heart of designing health care services. Evidence will be captured and shared, through web and audiovisual updates, the development of a comic book, and delivering video or radio events for professionals.
The Tizard Centre is a leading UK academic centre, based at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, working in autism, learning disability and community care.