Jim Blair is the only consultant nurse working with people with learning disabilities in the country. His job helps make people better and saves money. This article shares a conversation with Jim Blair. In the conversation, Blair says he is unhappy Valuing People programme did not do as much as it could have done. Jim is worried all the changes,…

Intensive Interaction is an empirically researched approach to developing fundamental communication and sociability for people with severe and profound learning disabilities and/or autism. However, it is the author's contention that certain aspects of Intensive Interaction are not universally conceptualised in a uniform manner, and that there are…

In this paper I continue to develop the growing interest in working with research approaches that enable people experiencing severe learning disabilities to participate in research activities. In particular, I discuss a research project that adopted a number of data generation strategies, including a drama pilot project. In this paper I focus on…

In this paper we argue that video recording of actual practice should be a central tool for organisations attempting to improve services for people with learning disabilities. Since an important site for the disempowerment of service-users is in everyday, mundane interactions with service staff, an approach to staff development is needed which…

If ever there was a right time to write about Learning Disability Services in the context of a transformation, this is it. I am not writing about the subject as a single entity, divorced from the bigger picture of what is happening to society and the world about us. Whatever "transforming" is going on for people with learning disability, it is…

The rise of new public management has seen the role of the social worker becoming increasingly administrative and less about face to face contact with service users. When commissioning managers seek to help people with learning disabilities plan their services, who actually makes the decisions? Direct payments are proposed as the answer for people…