No one wants to talk about it: Exploring transitions in family care for people with learning disabilities

Welcome to our website for the NIHR School for Social Care Research funded project: No one wants to talk about it: Exploring transitions in family care for people with learning disabilities. This page offers a short summary of the project, the top right of the page has links to the research questions and the research team. 

Project background

In the UK, over 1.7 million siblings act as carers, yet their experiences are often overlooked in social care research. Families of people with learning disabilities frequently worry about the future when aging parents can no longer provide care. Without proper planning, these “care transitions” can lead to emergency placements and emotional distress. This project aims to bridge this gap by bringing together people with learning disabilities, their siblings and their parents. The research team will explore how to ethically research the whole family’s perspective, helping to create better, more coordinated support for families during life’s major transitions.

The project will be carried out in co-production with people with learning disabilities, adult siblings and parents carers, underpinned by the principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). A scoping review will be completed, followed by a series of online workshops to capture the views of people with learning disabilities, siblings of people with learning disabilities and parent carers, exploring how care transitions should be approached and how current support is effective and ineffective at meeting everyone’s needs. 

If you want to contact us you can email Tom Ryan at t.j.ryan@sheffield.ac.uk