Thursday, 3 October 2024
5.30pm – 6.30pm (ACST – Adelaide time)
6pm – 7pm (AEST – Sydney time)
In Person: SACOSS Meeting room – 47 King William Rd, Unley, Adelaide
Webinar: via Zoom

Speaker: Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole
Katherine is a Visiting Scholar from the UK and has extensive experience of working alongside children, young people and adults with learning disabilities, their families and allies in research.

This event is accessible for people with intellectual disability and family caregivers. It is about family care. The speaker is experienced in communicating with people with intellectual disability and will deliver the presentation in an inclusive way. We are offering to support transport subsidy for people with intellectual disability if they nominate that they need support to get to the event they can contact us.

The webinar will focus on:

Family carers of adults with intellectual and learning disabilities talk about the satisfaction and joy they take in their caring relationships. They also experience many practical difficulties which can affect their mental health and wellbeing. Research shows a link between being a carer and mental distress.

In this seminar, Professor Runswick-Cole will share emerging findings of an on-going research project: Tired of Spinning Plates: an exploration of the mental health experiences of adults/older carers of adults with learning disabilities which focuses on carers’ mental health and wellbeing in the United Kingdom. The project is guided by the principles of co-production. This means that we work closely with family carers and with people with learning disabilities to plan and to carry out the research. We are also using arts-informed methods to create short films (digital stories) and an online exhibition, which capture people’s experiences. In the seminar, some of the films and exhibits will be shared and we will talk about how the team hopes to influence policy and practice to improve the lives of carers of adults with intellectual/learning disabilities.

If you would like to look at any of the films before the talk, you can access them here: https://sites.google.com/sheffield.ac.uk/tiredofspinningplates/films?authuser=0

To visit the exhibition click here: https://carermhspinningpla.wixsite.com/spinplatesexhibition

Please be aware that the films and exhibition are full of love and joy, but there are also moments of sadness, anger and distress