Learning Disabilities & Autism at Manchester Met

We're researching experiences of complaints about social care for family carers of people with learning disabilities. Please get in touch with Francesca below if you're interested in taking part. #Complaints #LearningDisability

The collective reflected on power - exploring it through drama, gatekeeping in the arts, how they make decisions together. Can we value behavioural consent/'no' as much as much as verbal? What does taking responsibility involve? They aim to challenge the 'accepted'. Thank you for sharing your work!

Home | Uncurbed Collective Disabled-led performance, arts and theatre company. Unapologetic. Uncompromising. Uncurbed.

Brilliant seminar with #UncurbedCollective today - a #disability arts company based here in Manchester. They wove together performance and discussion. The collective reflected on how they are working to co-create theatre and share power (in organising and performance). uncurbed.co.uk?gad_source=1...

Autistic People's Experiences of Cancer and Cancer Services The Learning Disabilities and Autism Research Group at Manchester Met invites you to a online seminar about autism and cancer

Please join us online on 11th March for our next (extended) research group seminar, on autistic people’s experiences of cancer and cancer services. Speakers: @kmunday.bsky.social, @georgiarivers.bsky.social, Char Goodwin and Rosie Tansley.

Sign up at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/autistic-p...

#AutRes

The latest in Chris Hatton's blog series on 2024/5 social care stats & adults with learning disabilities - on finances. "Spending less isn't any kind of solution - working with people with learning disabilities and those close to them to spend it better is." chrishatton.blogspot.com/2025/12/soci...

Qs: How to change stuck systems (influence at local level?) Importance of gender & intersectionality (mothers particularly blamed). It was important to families to have evidence through research. Thanks to Prof Clements & Dr Aiello for such important research. #DisabilityStudies #AcademicSky 5/5

System-generated trauma: Dealing with the system was families' most traumatic experience. Family courts were intimidating. Iatrogenic harm from medical professionals. Structural violence (those in power cause harm by doing nothing). Change in systems can be so slow, despite research & evidence. 4/

The book argues that change requires social care professionals to think & act differently and to start with the assumption that parents are the best placed to understand their child, their needs & preferences. Worked with parent groups who said expertise is not always recognised/taken seriously. 3/

Parent Blame Report - families said LA social care assessments were traumatising; a focus on safeguarding/child protection rather than support was intimidating, intrusive; lack of training; unlawful practices. Campaigning for change to policies - statutory guidance should have a focus on support. 2/

School of Law academics tackle Parent Blame in new edited collection Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello have published a new edited book titled 'Understanding Parent Blame: Institutional Failure and Complex Trauma' with Policy Press.

Today's seminar is from Professor Luke Clements & Dr Ana Laura Aiello @lawatleeds.bsky.social - findings from their book 'Understanding Parent Blame' - research with families on traumatising social care experiences, in policy & legal context, and campaigns for change essl.leeds.ac.uk/law/news/art...

Understanding Parent Blame The Learning Disability and Autism Research Group invites you to a hybrid seminar with Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello

Please share: Join us online or in-person on 10th December 2025 (12pm-1pm) for our next seminar: Understanding Parent Blame with guest speakers Professor Luke Clements and Dr Ana Laura Aiello. All welcome!

More info and booking at the link below:

#LearningDisabilityResearch #AcademicSky #AutRes

New autism strategy must deliver change for autistic people - Committees - UK Parliament This is the key conclusion reached by the House of Lords special inquiry committee on the Autism Act 2009 in its report ‘Time to deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy’.&...

🚨 ♾ Our report out yesterday calls on HM Government to deliver an effective new autism strategy. Open this link committees.parliament.uk/committee/77... to view the following:
- Full report
- Easy Read report
- Report summary with conclusions and recommendations
- Shorthand

“I Just Didn’t Fit into the Way That They Did Church”: Barriers to Access and Participation for Disabled People in UK Churches <p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" class="first" dir="auto" id="d1540803e97">Disabled people have rights to practise their religions under equality and human rights l...

New article from team member Naomi Jacobs, sharing findings from research with disabled members of churches on the right to participate in religious institutions, in the light of the Equality Act www.scienceopen.com/document?vid...

Nathan Keates I work as a lecturer at the University of Sunderland in London having joined the Health and Social Care department in 2023. I teach on both the foundation and top-up programmes.

2/3 Comedy challenges ideas of what is normal. There may be "like-mindedness" between autistic people but everyone is different. Which identities are we afforded (allowed)? Reflected on autistic spaces, culture & challenges to these. More on Nathan's work here london.sunderland.ac.uk/about/staff/...

We had a great Research Group seminar today from Dr Nathan Keates, on Autistic Relations: Like-mindedness, Identities and Community. Through comedy improvisation, Nathan's research explores autistic people's ways of being social - as distinctive rather than a problem. #AutRes #AcademicSky 1/3

Please share! Reminder to please join us tomorrow (online or in-person @manmetuni.bsky.social) for the next free event in our research group seminar series.

Please click the link below for information and booking:

#AutRes #Autism #ActuallyAutistic #AutismResearch #AcademicSky

Autistic Relations: Like-mindedness, Identities, and Community The Learning Disabilities and Autism Research Group invites you to a hybrid seminar by Dr Nathan Keates

Please join us online and in-person this Wednesday (12th November) for the next event in our seminar series with Dr Nathan Keates - ' #Autistic Relations: Link-mindedness, Identities, and Community'. The event is free to attend and all are welcome!

Please follow the link for more info and booking:

Employment and adults with learning disabilities in England - 2024/25 update Towards the end of October each year, the government publishes statistics about adult social care for England for the previous financial yea...

Updates on #Employment #Statistics for adults with #LearningDisabilities 2025/25 from Professor Chris Hatton's blog: chrishatton.blogspot.com/2025/10/empl...

#AutRes #AcademicSky #Statistics #LearningDisabilityResearch

Thank you so much for coming, Penny! We are so glad you enjoyed the symposium.

Developing a working alliance measure for adults with intellectual disabilities: Focus group Primary researcher: Emma Gleave, Trainee Clinical Psychologist, University of Sheffield Research supervisors: Dr Gregg Rawlings, Prof Nigel Beail, and Dr Nik Vlissides

Professionals with experience of providing psychological therapy to adults with learning disabilities needed for research to develop a therapeutic working alliance measure for this population. Click here: forms.gle/L8TYrjxBBGhC...

Please share
@learningmet.bsky.social
#LearningDisabilityResearch

Please share! The @digitallifeline.bsky.social project is looking for family carers, supporters, and professionals to take part in a research workshop about their experiences of supporting people with learning disabilities who received free digital devices during the COVID-19 pandemic. #AcademicSky

A flyer for an online symposium with white text and speakers' photos on a brick wall background. Text reads: Wed 8th October 12-2pm. Religions, Faith Communities and Disability. Online symposium with speakers Dr Krysia Waldock, Bernice Hardie and Fiona MacMillan. Chaired by Dr Naomi Jacobs. Link to event via Eventbrite.

Please join us for a symposium on Religions, Faith Communities & Disability, 8th Oct 12-2pm, online. @krysiawally.bsky.social, Bernice Hardie and @jpuddlegoose.bsky.social will share research and action for inclusion in faith communities and beyond. Sign up: tinyurl.com/3pdjmn4d #AutRes #AcademicSky

Digital Lifeline - Downs Syndrome Association Researchers would like to hear from people with learning disabilities as part of an assessment of the government's Digital Lifeline Fund.

Thank you so much to the #DownsSyndromeAssociation for sharing our call for research participants.

Did you support someone with a learning disability with a free digital device they received during the pandemic?

Contact us to join one of our online workshops and share your experience:

Prof Chris Hatton has blogged about the recently-released LeDeR Annual Report 2023, including some worrying inconsistencies and trends there. "It looks like less attention and less scrutiny is being paid of the deaths of people with learning disabilities." chrishatton.blogspot.com/2025/09/lede...

Critical Health and Learning Disabilities: An Exploration of Erasure and Social Murder This empirically grounded book presents a critical, interdisciplinary perspective on social and cultural issues related to the health and wellbeing of people with learning disabilities. Through an exp...

"The book highlights the enduringly impoverished lives and premature deaths people labelled with learning disabilities experience globally and suggests that such structural violence amounts to social murder." @sarasiobhan.bsky.social

www.routledge.com/Critical-Hea...

Resources - Learning Disability and Autism Research Group People with learning disabilities, erasure and social murder This resource explains more about Professor Sara Ryan’s book, ‘Critical Health and Learning Disabilities: An Exploration of Erasure and Soc...

Professor Sara Ryan's new book 'Critical Health and Learning Disabilities: An Exploration of Erasure and Social Murder' is out today. There's a Plain English summary on our website: learningmet.mmu.ac.uk/resources/

Did someone you work with receive a free tablet during the #COVID-19 pandemic? We want to hear about their experiences through our @digitallifeline.bsky.social accessible online survey. They could win £100 for taking part!

#SelfAdvocacy #LearningDisabilities #AutRes #AcademicSky #DigitalInclusion

Three Years on From “Stay at Home”: Perspectives of People With Intellectual Disabilities About the Ongoing Impact of the COVID‐19 Pandemic Background People with intellectual disabilities were disproportionately negatively affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there has been limited research about the perceived longer-term impact....

"The Government just don't even have a clue about what the pandemic has done to people like me, with an [intellectual] disability."

Findings from research on ongoing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic for people with learning disabilities. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@suecaton.bsky.social

Iatrogenic injustice: an institutional ethnography of Fitness to Practise hearings The public has an important role to play in the regulation of health and social care, including raising concerns about harms caused by health and soci…

'Our investigation of the experiences of public witnesses shows that, from their standpoint, FtP hearings are experienced as inherently unfair.'

Follow the link to read more about findings emerging from the Witness to Harm project:

@francescaribenfors.bsky.social @sarasiobhan.bsky.social

BAP - 6704 Chancellor's Dinner Research Film V10

In this short video, Professor Sara Ryan, research group lead, and Professor Chris Hatton share more about the Learning Disability and Autism research group at @scswmcrmet.bsky.social @manmetuni.bsky.social.

#AcademicSky #AutRes #LearningDisabilityResearch #ResearchGroup #ManMet