We are very excited to be launching this site – and it seems fitting that our first blog should give a bit of a background to why we have made this site, and what our hopes are going forwards.
Click below for an easy read version, or click ‘continue reading’ to see a non visual version.
Where the ideas for a website came from
Our work in the NHS, research, and not least our own experiences, has shown just how complicated and sometimes stressful moving house can be. I investigated this further in some research looking into people with learning disabilities’ experiences of moving as part of Transforming Care1. I talked to people who had moved into their own homes as part of the Transforming Care scheme in the south of England. It was a privilege to hear peoples’ stories – some people had been in hospital for many years, but had come through it to now live in their own home in the community, without as many restrictions in place as they had had in hospital. It wasn’t always plain sailing – the moves had often been fraught with a range of challenges, and life wasn’t always totally rosy since the move. However, most people talked about how positive it had been for them. We will have a more detailed blog about the findings from this research in the future.
This project sparked our interest into finding out more about what makes these moves a success, so that these moves can be replicated to give people moving as part of Transforming Care the best chance of having a ‘good’ life in the community. Again, we will cover this next step of our research more in another blog post coming soon. But just briefly we have just embarked on a larger 3-year study following up people who have moved as part of Transforming Care, asking them about what has helped and what has got in the way of a successful life after moving.
Both the earlier ‘moving process’ and the current ‘living process’ stages of the research have highlighted that there are so many intertwining factors in making a move a success. We realised that there is a huge amount of information already available on the internet that can help people moving, but sometimes this is spread about different places. We also noticed that some of the psychological aspects of moving, such as the emotions someone goes through, and how moving can feel like a loss, aren’t addressed so much in what’s out there. So we thought that a website about moving when you have learning disabilities could be a useful resource to people, as well as their families, carers, and professionals involved in their care. We got funding from NHS England to develop the site and it’s wonderful that it’s finally here for you to use.
How to find your way around the website
We have tried to make this website as easy to use and navigate as possible. Our great team has been made up of people with learning disabilities who have given us invaluable feedback on the look of the site, the content, how easy it is to use and so on. But we are still making it better so would love your feedback.
It seemed to use there were some broad areas of concern that came up for people when moving, so that’s how we’ve ordered things on the site.
- Looking After Yourself – this is possibly the central part of the site, as it’s just so important to look after our wellbeing during the stressful time of moving. We started planning the site well before 2021, but since the pandemic has hit this is even more important than ever! Head to this section for advice on psychological wellbeing, information about the ‘normal’ emotions to have during moving, and keeping healthy.
- Practical Stuff – head to this section for advice and information broken down into planning your move, during your move, and after moving.
- Connecting with new people – we know that ‘no one is an island’ – everyone is connected to people around them. For some people moving, they will have to get to know a whole new team of people. This part of the site has ideas on how someone moving and their new team can get to know each other; and also has information on other important aspects of relationships.
- Legal Stuff – there are a range of policies and legal frameworks in place during a move, depending on the type of move that is happening. These can all be a bit daunting, so there is more information here on peoples’ rights and the law when they move.
How we hope the site will evolve over time
The website aims to evolve over the next few years to be as useful as possible. For example, we aim to share findings from our current research project as they come out, so that the evidence from people with learning disabilities can make a real and timely difference to peoples’ lives
Let us know what you think
Please let us know what you think! Is the site easy to navigate? Is there information or guidance that you think we should signpost to that we have missed? Are there any information sheets that don’t yet exist you think we should create? Please email us, or contact us on Twitter or Facebook.
1 If you’ve never heard of Transforming Care, it was a large scheme in England to move people out of inappropriate hospital placements into homes of their own, sparked by the unveiling of abuse by a BBC Panorama programme in 2012. An undercover journalist recorded evidence of patients being abused by staff at Winterbourne View, a specialist ‘Assessment and Treatment Unit’ or ATU. ATU is one of the names given for specialist hospital or units for people with learning disabilities in need of mental health support, and / or if they are using behaviours which challenge which require intervention. The UK government subsequently looked into how many other people with learning disabilities were in similar settings. The results showed hundreds of people locked away in hospitals, sometimes for many years, and sometimes with no plans for discharge. For many, these hospitals had effectively become their homes.
