There are more and more examples of mainstream mental health services supporting people with learning disabilities when they have mental health problems. The authors of this cross sectional study were keen to explore whether the attitudes of staff in mainstream mental health services towards people with learning disabilities was in any way negative and whether [read the full story…]
Attitudes held by professionals towards the empowerment of people with learning disabilities can impact enormously on the nature of the support they receive. There is a big literature on the impact of attitudes held by medical professional s on access to and quality of healthcare for example. This issue was key to the pace of [read the full story…]
Challenging behaviour in people with learning disabilities often puts the safety of the person or others around them in jeopardy and can have an impact on the person’s quality of life. The authors of this study set out to explore the relationship between the way in which staff perceive challenging behaviour and staff burnout. They [read the full story…]
The researcher in this study set out to explore the differences in perspectives that exist between parents with learning disabilities and the professionals employed to support them. Parents with disabilities may report having little say in the nature of the support they receive and may feel as though they are being coerced into accepting whatever [read the full story…]
There is a growing literature on the interaction of issues that impact on outcomes for people with learning disabilities who live in supported housing or other residential services. Issues relating to the organisation of supports can play a key role in influencing outcomes. This review of the literature set out to look at these issues [read the full story…]
Whilst there is a developing literature relating to attitudes to sexuality in people with learning disabilities, there is very little in the published literature about their reproductive health. The researchers in this study set out to look at the attitudes of caregivers and to look in more detail at what things determine gynaecological health in [read the full story…]
Training for staff supporting people whose behaviour is challenging is a crucial part of appropriate and consistent supports. This study set out to provide a pilot evaluation of development workshops with direct care staff supporting people described as having significant psychosocial difficulties. The staff teams attended a series of workshops which were designed to use [read the full story…]
Supporting people with learning disabilities can be a stressful job. Previous studies have identified predictors of staff burnout but there is little consensus about the way these factors interact with each other, or their relative importance. The researchers in this study looked at the direct and indirect associations between work stressors, emotional responses by staff, [read the full story…]
