You are invited to our second Inaugural Professorial Lecture of 2021/22 in the Faculty of Health and Education. Delivered by Professor Chris Hatton, the lecture will look at learning disabilities and COVID-19. The lecture will be introduced by our Head of Social Care and Social Work, Dr Jenny Fisher.

The lecture will take place in Brooks Lecture Theatre 3, however it will also be possible to watch and participate online. When booking, please choose either an in-person or online ticket. Those booking online tickets will be sent a participation link before the event.

Refreshments will be provided for those attending in person.

Just to let people know that this session will be recorded with the intention of further dissemination to university staff for training purposes. Please see Manchester Metropolitan’s privacy notice for online meetings and lectures for further information about how we process personal data in this way. You should inform the organiser prior to the event if you have any concerns about the session being recorded. The recordings will be reviewed for relevancy after 12 months, and deleted when no longer deemed to be relevant.

Title and abstract

Things can’t only get better: People with learning disabilities, COVID-19 and beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into stark relief the pervasive inequalities already faced by people with learning disabilities. Starting early and continuing throughout people’s lives, people with learning disabilities are more likely to experience the social and economic inequalities recognised as having an impact on the health and wellbeing of anyone: poverty and hardship, poor education, unemployment and underemployment, poor housing, social isolation and exclusion, bullying and crime. In addition, pervasive discrimination in the very health and social services designed to support people can widen rather than narrow these inequalities, with the result that even before the COVID-19 pandemic people with learning disabilities were dying on average 15-20 years younger than other people.

In this lecture I want to use recent research tracking the experiences of adults with learning disabilities through the pandemic to talk more broadly about the marginalised and precarious position of people with learning disabilities within UK society. I also want to reflect on the collective nature of the research I’ve been involved in, the role of research evidence (and academics) in social change, and the importance of resetting research on a routinely ethical footing. Finally, I want to pay tribute to the self-advocates, family members, activists, journalists, lawyers and professionals who are working for equality and justice in the most difficult of times.

Biography

I joined the Department of Social Care and Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University as a Professor of Social Care in September 2020. Going backwards in time, I previously worked at Lancaster University (including a stint as Co-Director of the Public Health England Learning Disabilities Observatory), the Lancashire Clinical Psychology Programme, and the Hester Adrian Research Centre at the University of Manchester.

Most of the research I’ve been involved in concerns people with learning disabilities (‘intellectual disabilities’ is the term more often used internationally). In the more than 30 years I’ve been working there have been a lot of research projects with a lot of people. If there is a golden thread through these projects, it might be documenting and understanding the inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities, evaluating policies, services and supports that are supposed to tackle these inequalities, and working with others in a position to put this research evidence to good use.