Collaboration with Glasgow Disability Alliance
Richard Brunner has been conducting long-term research in collaboration with Glasgow Disability Alliance (GDA), a disabled people's organisation with 5,500 members, since July 2021.
Future Visions for Social Care
In 2022-23 and 2023-24, the collaboration has focused on Future Visions for Social Care and improving independent living outcomes for disabled people. Richard has worked in a GDA team alongside a Policy and Participation worker and a Community Navigator. There are a series of outputs from this work.
What works in community-based adult social care in Scotland?
This October 2023 research report is based on in-depth interviews with a range of disabled people in Scotland who have had good experiences of community-based adult social care. The report foregrounds the voices of the disabled people that took part in the study. The report identifies six common features that helped people to gain and maintain good social care. It also identifies seven features that would help secure good community-based adult social care and enable independent living for disabled people across Scotland. The report concludes that good experiences of community-based adult social care are underpinned by four established independent living principles – freedom, choice, dignity and control, plus a fifth principle of reciprocity.
Navigating social care, independent living and human rights. Four Community Navigator cases from Future Visions for Social Care
This report describes four complex social care cases and the work done by the Community Navigator to support the individuals involved. The cases are anonymised and demonstrate social care gaps that should not have been able to arise. They show the painstaking casework required by the Community Navigator to then make a difference.
The report sets out how easily rights enshrined in Articles of the UNCRPD can be breached, and demonstrate unmet health and social care needs.
A Time to be Bold: Scotland-wide learning from the GDA Future Visions projects
This report brings together learning across eleven years of iterations of Future Visions, including the 2022-23 project, seeking to draw out the generalisable lessons.
Be Bold argues that in order to fulfil the ambition of collaborative reform of social care and to achieve consistency and equality in social care in every area of Scotland, a disabled-people led organisation needs to be sustained in every local authority area, to lead a Future Visions-style programme.
What works in social care? Preliminary research report
The work of Future Visions 2022-23 has identified multiple barriers experienced by disabled people who need good social care. To complement this evidence, this research aimed to find examples of how social care should work for all disabled adults in Scotland, enabling independent living - but all too often does not.
This preliminary report describes how the research was done and some prospective themes. Full, thematised findings will be published in June 2023.
How should we think about "unmet need" in social care? A critical exploratory literature review
Recording unmet needs in social care is proposed in Scotland's Independent Review of Adult Social Care (IRASC) as part of its strategic goal of reforming social care to improve outcomes for people and communities.
Accurately identifying and measuring unmet needs implies defining what is meant by unmet needs. IRASC does not do this, and this review takes on the challenge, drawing on over 100 sources.
The review, written by Nafsika Zarkou (Ph.D. candidate, University of Glasgow) and Richard Brunner, recommends that:
"To achieve independent living outcomes for all Scotland’s adults that need social care first requires identifying and measuring the unmet care needs of three groups. Those who need social care but receive none; those who receive some social care but need more; and those who need their social care to be amended in order to achieve independent living. 'Unmet needs in adult social care' in Scotland should therefore be defined as: (a) the number of adults in Scotland that need any, more, or amended, social care to enable them to achieve and sustain independent living, and (b) the range of those unsatisfied care and support needs."
The review also identifies that there is a need for an independent body to drive through accurate evaluation of unmet needs in adult social care in Scotland in the context of independent living. Disabled people, Disabled People’s Organisations and social care user groups should be involved in the process.
COVID-19 recovery
In 2021-22 the collaboration with the Glasgow Disability Alliance produced evidence seeking to influence Glasgow’s post-COVID recovery, so that it is inclusive of disabled people. This includes these reports published by GDA:
- Transforming participation for disabled people in Glasgow beyond Covid 19
- Ending Poverty and Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled People in Glasgow beyond Covid-19
All publications
Brunner, R. (2023) What works in community-based adult social care in Scotland? University of Glasgow and Glasgow Disability Alliance.
Scobie, M., Brunner, R. and McAloon, F. (2023) Navigating social care, independent living and human rights. Four Community Navigator cases from Future Visions for Social Care. University of Glasgow and Glasgow Disability Alliance.
Brunner, R., Burke, T., Scobie, M. and Lawson, S. (2023) A Time to be Bold Scotland-wide learning from the GDA Future Visions projects. University of Glasgow and Glasgow Disability Alliance.
Brunner, R. (2023) What works in social care? Preliminary research report. University of Glasgow.
Zarkou, N. and Brunner, R. (2023) How should we think about "unmet need" in social care? A critical exploratory literature review. University of Glasgow.
Brunner, R. and Glasgow DPO Network (May 2022) Ending Poverty and Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled People in Glasgow beyond Covid-19
Brunner, R. and Glasgow DPO Network (Jan 2022) Transforming Participation for Disabled People in Glasgow beyond Covid-19
