Colleagues from our research team gave a wonderful presentation on their experiences of working on a co-produced research project at the Annual Social Work and Social Care Research in Practice Conference on the 6th March at Belfast Castle.

Here’s the abstract for the presentation:

Making decisions about your own life is a key aspect of independence, freedom and human rights. Mental health law has previously allowed compulsory intervention even when a person has the decision making ability to decline intervention. This discriminates against those with mental ill health and intellectual disabilities. The Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) became statutory law in May 2016 and will replace rather than run in parallel to a mental health law. A core principle of the new act is that people are “not to be treated as unable to make a decision…unless all practicable help and support to enable the person to make a decision about the matter have been given without success” (Article 1(4)). There are people who, without support, would be assessed as incapable of making certain decisions but with the appropriate support are capable of making those decisions, and so to not provide that support infringes their rights, undermines their autonomy and reinforces their exclusion from society.

The study was funded by Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning (DRILL) and was a multi-agency partnership between Praxis Care, Mencap NI and Queen’s University of Belfast. The study was designed because there is limited research evidence about people’s experiences of the different approaches which can support decision-making, Four peer researchers were therefore employed for the duration of the project and 41 interviews were conducted with people with mental ill health and intellectual disabilities in order to understand their experiences of supported decision-making, their preferences and ideas for how decision-making should be supported. This presentation will look at the process of co-production and the pros and cons of conducting co-produced studies which involve people with mental ill health and intellectual disabilities. Suggestions for how to overcome the barriers to successful co-produced projects will be given.

Edge, R., McLaughlin, A., Norris, B., Owens, A., Webb, P. (2019) Perspectives on co-production: supported decision making – experiences, approaches and preferences. In Public Health Agency, Health and Social Care Board, Building Research to Evaluate Complex Interventions in Social Work and Social Care: A Consideration of Methodological Issues, 6th Annual Social Work and Social Care in Practice Conference, Belfast Castle, Belfast, UK, 6th March 2019.