Living with Disability Research Centre Research Seminar Series

People with intellectual disabilities planning for the future and support for decision making

Our first seminar for 2022 focuses on two interconnected themes - support for decision making and futures planning. Both can have a lasting impact on the lives of people with intellectual disabilities.

Planning for the future among older parents of adults with intellectual disabilities 

Associate Professor, Ruth Walker, Flinders University, Adelaide

This presentation will provide an overview of the research we have carried out over the last five years focusing on the issue of futures planning among ageing parent caregivers of adults with intellectual disabilities. It will outline some salient features of our qualitative studies, conducted with Anglo as well as Greek and Italian migrant families. These sudies have focused on the ways in which parents experience this caregiving role as well as the extent to which they are engaging in futures planning. The presentation will also provide an overview of our recently funded ARC Linkage project: Post-parental housing transitions among adults with intellectual disability. The project aims to address the urgent issue of growing numbers of older people with intellectual disabilities outliving their parent carers who have not put future care plans in place. The project will generate a national evidence-based framework for ensuring successful post-parental housing and care transitions.

Making or supporting decisions? An analysis of the decision making practice of New South Wales guardians

Jenna Macnab, PhD Candidate, Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University

This presentation will examine the complex, and sometimes conflicting ways in which guardians work within NSW substitute decision-making legislative boundaries. The work of such guardians aims to achieve outcomes for people with intellectual disabilities under guardianship orders. The presentation will provide an overview of some of the emergent themes revealed by the data from a grounded theory analysis of interviews with NSW Public Guardians. Some of these themes include navigating the authorising environment, using a ‘helicopter lens’, and mobilising, manoeuvring and relying on networks.