Understanding Transition:
A Learning Disability and Autism Perspective
Since 2022, the PCP Community Research Team have been working directly with the learning disability community to try to understand their experiences. We have spoken to people living with a learning disability and/or autism (LD&/A), their families and caregivers, as well as the perspectives of professionals delivering specialist and non-specialist services in County Durham.
We focused on individuals’ experiences of transition, particularly from school life into college/adulthood, moving services/home, and the changes that are involved in growing older. We made use of a variety of methods, including conducting focus groups, creative workshops and producing research films to capture opinions from a wider group.
Our goal is to identify gaps and opportunities in service provision while determining future needs. We hope we can help bring improved and better coordinated services, helping people living with LD&/A to get the right support to live the life they want in their local community, as per the UK government’s ambition.
Coming Soon
Working with Journey Enterprise, a day service based in Coundon, we are in the process of producing a series of videos as a novel approach to our research. We invited individuals to speak about their experiences around employment and how they have made a contribution to their local neighbourhoods. These will be shared here as well as via social media when available.
Latest Developments
Following a presentation of findings to the Resilience Community Group in November 2023, Phase II of this project was initiated. This has focused on supporting local employers to understand the needs and experiences of neurodiverse employees and jobseekers. To promote employment and understanding, a comprehensive, up-to-date and digestible guideline is currently being produced and is in final stages of review. The new employment guideline will be circulated when available.