About Feeling at Home

Project outline

What helps you ‘feel at home’ in your house or flat? Maybe these things help you feel at home:

Having photos of your family and friends around you
Having a private space where no one bothers you
Inviting friends round to watch the football on TV
Being friends with the people who live on your street

‘Feeling at home’ helps us feel happy, secure and relaxed.

When people with learning disabilities live together in a house or flat with staff support, we can be fairly sure that the place they live is safe and clean. But do they feel ‘at home’? And how do staff help them to feel ‘at home’?

In this research project we want to find out from people with learning disabilities what helps them feel at home where they live and what gets in the way of ‘feeling at home’. We have money for the project from the National Institute of Health Research’s School for Social Care Research.

The project started in January 2021 and will run until the end of December 2023.

There will be lots of ways for people with learning disabilities and staff who work with them to join in with the research.

Ethical Approval

The Social Care Research Ethics Committee (REC) approved the Feeling project on the 18th November 2021. This means that the REC has looked closely at our research plans, our participant information, consent forms, and other information materials. The REC considers our research project to be following current ethical standards. If you want more information, please contact Katy Brickley on katy.brickley@kcl.ac.uk.

Doing the research

The project has three parts.

1. Taking photos and showing them to others

We will ask people with learning disabilities living in group homes with staff support to take photos of where they live. We will talk about the photos to find out what they think about their homes and the way staff support them. We will discover what ‘feeling at home’ means for the people with learning disabilities who take part in the groups. This way of doing research is called Photovoice. It gives people the chance to share their lives through the photos they take.

We will also talk to home support staff and family members of people with learning disabilities to hear what they think services do to help people feel ‘at home’.

We will put the photos together in an exhibition about ‘Feeling at Home’ in an art gallery. The exhibition will be open for everyone and we will ask people who come to see it what they think about the photos.

About Feeling at Home

Project outline

Doing the research

1. Taking photos and showing them to others

2. Our design group

3. Testing out the checklist and toolkit

Feeling at Home

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