The Feeling at Home Project: Invitation to Family Members

If you are a family member of someone with learning disabilities who lives in a group home with staff support we would love to speak to you.

We are a small team of researchers working on a project focused on an aspect of residential care for people with learning disabilities that can get overlooked - how much the setting enables the residents to really ‘feel at home’ where they live. What helps us feel ‘at home’ is very individual, and is shaped not only by design and content of our homes, but also by daily routines and activities and our relationships with others we live with.

The goal of the project is to discover what ‘feeling at home’ means to people with learning disabilities living in group homes, and to find out what their family members and support staff think can help residents ‘feel at home’ and what can get in the way.

We will use our findings to design materials for people with learning disabilities, their families and staff which we hope will improve the living environment for people living in group homes, so more people feel at home where they live.

We want to interview relatives of people with a range of support needs to hear your views on this topic. Interviews will be by phone or online.

The project is receiving public funding and has been approved by an NHS Research Ethics Committee on the 18th November 2021. You can learn more about the project on our website www.feelingathome.org.uk.

If you are interested and would like to find out more, please contact Dr Katy Brickley, Research Assistant at katy.brickley@kcl.ac.uk