Search

This paper is about my job as a research supporter. I was part of a team, with three people with learning difficulties. They had paid jobs as researchers. The project was at a People First organisation, and it was about direct payments.These are the things I tried to do in my job:It is not always easy to do these things. The supporter needs to learn how to step back, and find ways for researchers with learning difficulties to do things for themselves.It is important that people with learning difficulties know how powerful they can be when they are doing research.People First organisations need to decide for themselves about the research they may want to do.Thank you to CHANGE for the use of pictures from their PictureBank. In a previous article [Brit J Learn Disabil27: 48–51], entitled‘Researching Together’, I described the process by which a team of People First researchers and myself worked together on a small-scale project in Bristol. The project was started by self advocates, and followed their own ideas, although they had support. Walmsley refers to it [Disabil Soc16: 198] as a‘team approach, rather than one where the people with learning disabilities are in charge’, admitting that the title‘Researching Together’ led her to this conclusion. My basic aim in writing this sequel, then, is to consider the notion of‘together’. Is the equation of togetherness about equal roles, or does it automatically imply that one partner is more powerful than the others? This is a practice paper, which offers some analysis of our own experiences in a large-scale, funded research project, in which the self advocates had paid employment as researchers. All members of the team can contribute to this kind of reflexivity. The article concludes that inclusive research is something new, with its own hallmarks and styles. The research supporter has to remain aware of the potential power in her own role, and to be prepared to divest herself of that power and to step back, so that People First members take control of the process of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]