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Dr Kate Theodore, Clinical Psychologist / Senior Lecturer: Since qualifying as a clinical psychologist, I have worked with people with learning disabilities in a community learning disability team setting, and since 2011, I have combined my clinical role with working on the Clinical Psychology doctorate training programme at Royal Holloway University of London, currently as a senior lecturer. Over this time, in both clinical and academic roles, I have been involved in supporting and developing services to improve their joint-working to better support parents with learning disabilities, and have conducted and supervised research projects investigating how parents with learning disabilities are supported, from the multiple perspectives of parents, family/social support network and professional network. Since 2016, I have been privileged to be working with Mind the Gap, the UK’s largest learning disabilities theatre company, on the Wellcome Trust funded ‘Daughters of Fortune’ project. The project aims to use an inclusive, qualitative research methodology to further research the experiences of parents with learning disabilities, to use theatre and other creative arts to share these important and often unheard stories with new audiences, and to develop training resources for professionals. I am currently a Committee Member / Policy Lead for the BPS DCP Faculty for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

See also http://www.mind-the-gap.org.uk/projects/daughters-of-fortune   

We want to be parents like everyone else”: The lives of learning disabled parents: Inclusive research and creative outputs from the Daughters of Fortune project

Introduction: An innovative project funded by the Wellcome Trust has allowed Mind the Gap, the largest UK learning disability theatre company, to collaborate with university researchers, to collate and share stories about the experiences of parents with learning disabilities (LD) through qualitative research alongside a number of artistic outputs (film, forum theatre, national touring theatre production, giant outdoor theatre events, book).

Methods: 22 parents with LD, from across the UK, have been interviewed by a small research team including a principle researcher with LD. This user-led research methodology collected detailed accounts of the parents’ experiences. The interviews were analysed qualitatively using Thematic Analysis, with continued involvement from researchers and participants with ID, to enhance research quality.

Results: The four themes generated from the qualitative research reflect parents’ experiences of feeling in powerless positions in various relationships, and facing assumptions of incompetence about their parenting ability. However, parents also talked about wanting to prove to others that they can be good parents, and about (re)claiming power in their lives through self-advocacy.

Collaboratively with one of the principle LD researchers, we will present the themes from the qualitative analysis and our reflections on the inclusive research process, together with some of the artistic outputs (short films, book) and training resources for professionals generated from the project.

Implications: The project uses inclusive research to explore and disseminate the perspectives of parents with LD, aiming to challenge stigma faced by LD parents and to enhance training resources for health/social care professionals working with them.