[log in to unmask]"
type="cite">
Hi Theo,
I've got a couple of recent refs relating to loneliness and people with learning difficulties, you could probably mine the ref lists for further material as well:
Lafferty McConkey Taggart 2013 in D&S
Mason, Timms Hayburn Watters 2013 in JARID (loads of good refs in this)
There is also, as I recall stuff in Hunt's anthology "Stigma" which touches on loneliness.
have PDFs if you have any problems accessing anything.
Regards,
Liz
On 31 May 2013, at 15:59, Theo Blackmore wrote:
Hello all
I feel I'm wording this posting in an incredibly clumsy way, so apologies for my verbal incompetence.
I'm fascinated and perplexed by the UK discourse focus around loneliness, with its exclusive focus on 'old age'. It seems that if we could only increase feelings of connection for individual older people - to local communities, friend and families - then we would be able to reduce the costs to statutory sector adult social and health care services. Cameron's 'Big Society', notions of social capital, and much Health research seems to focus on trying to quantify how increasing individual access to social capital resources can reduce the costs to the state.
However I can find no research that uses this same rhetoric in relation to impairment and younger disabled people. I have done a bit of research into the patterns of UK Adult Social Care expenditure, here - http://www.disabilitycornwall.org.uk/images/stories/Research/comparative%20uk%20dacs%20expenditure%20010313.pdf.
This quite clearly demonstrates how the largest area of Local Authority statutory sector expenditure growth is for people aged under 65 years of age, and in particular for people aged under 65 with 'learning disabilities'. I have added to this document with many more UK Local Authorities, though it is not yet online. This data expansion showed that the findings from this smaller study are replicated across the UK.
And yet this is greatly under-reported, or not even reported at all. It almost seems that younger disabled people being 'lonely', or 'isolated' is acceptable, or at least more acceptable, than it is for older people. With little social policy focus on this area, the social and health care bills will continue to increase, and, more importantly, younger disabled people who are lonely or isolated may continue to be so.
Of course, some people choose to be more socially isolated than others. It is not the case that everyone should be with everyone else at all times. I am interested in the disabled people who find themselves isolated or lonely - including through segregation and exclusion - but who do not wish to be so.
The reason I am posting here now is to ask whether you know of any research looking at disability and loneliness/isolation. I am interested in what the implications of this loneliness might be for younger people (i.e. people aged under 65), and what a project aimed at tackling this social exclusion might look like/do.
Many thanks for your time in this.
Theo Blackmore, Disability Cornwall, UK
________________End of message________________
This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies).
Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask]
Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.
________________End of message________________
This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies).
Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask]
Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.