Concepts of access for people with learning difficulties: towards a shared understanding

Abstract

This article explores both the process and outcomes of a seminar series on the concept of access for people with learning difficulties. The seminar topics chosen to foster dialogue across professional and disciplinary boundaries included access to information, education, employment, the law, health, leisure, community, past histories and future plans. The seminars brought together people with learning difficulties and their support workers, researchers and professionals, to examine the expert knowledge of people with learning difficulties in negotiating access, the role of practitioners in mediating access and the contribution of research to understanding access. The aim was to develop a rich, shared understanding of the concept of access for people with learning difficulties. However, a huge amount of ‘access work’ had to be done to achieve this. The article discusses that access work and proposes a multidimensional model of access and ways of promoting it.

Keywords:

• learning difficulties
• access
• participation
• inclusion
• barriers

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to our speakers (Dorothy Atkinson, Dora Bjarnason, Gary Butler, Roy McConkey, Mabel Cooper, Duncan Mitchell, Dee Molina, Lou Townson, Jan Walmsley), our round table and workshop facilitators and to all the participants. Their ideas provided much of the stimulation for discussion and for the ideas presented here. We are grateful to the ESRC for funding the series.

Notes

1. Dorothy Atkinson and Mabel Cooper, Accessing the past, accessing the future, Seminar 6, University of Southampton, 4 June 2007.

2. Dee Molina, Real jobs for real people, Seminar 2, 6 February 2006.

3. Duncan Mitchell, Health for all! Is it really so difficult?, Seminar 3, 1 June 2006.

4. Dora Bjarnason, Access: a life story, Seminar 4, 6 November 2006.

5. Roy McConkey, Promoting social inclusion – what’s the problem?, Seminar 5, 5 February 2007.

6. Dan Goodley, Three ‘C’s’ of participatory research, Workshop, Seminar 3, 1 June 2006.

7. Gary Butler, How it all began, Seminar 6, 4 June 2007.

8. Darren Gunn and Paul Rixon, The role of the regional forum in promoting access, Workshop, Seminar 5, 5 February 2007.

9. Jan Walmsley, Access in mind: a review of approaches to making ideas and information accessible, Seminar 1, 10 November 2005.