In January, Sam Holman and Gerard Starling were appointed as Co-Researchers to lead a research project into understanding what money means to people with a learning disability.
Sam, who has a learning disability himself, was particularly keen to be involved to help ensure people have a say about the support they get with money.
Sam and Gerard held two workshops as well as individual interviews to understand people’s experiences. They asked people if they felt they had freedom over what they could spend. Many felt they did but talked about the help they had from their support staff or family members too. This meant that they didn’t feel as worried about managing their money or the impact of challenges like the cost-of-living crisis.
One person shared his experience of buying a pet gecko! His support team helped him to visit the shop and about how to look after a gecko, including what this would cost on an ongoing basis. A family member then helped check affordability and arranged to get him the funds from the account they manage on his behalf.
People also shared that having support with some areas of their money was vital.
When reflecting on what people said, Sam and Gerard felt that there were opportunities for some people to build their skills and have more control over their money. For example, they talked to people about knowing more about their savings so they can make decisions about what to save for and buy. They could also then plan ahead and save for larger purchases such as holidays new TV or some sort of expensive gift. In the case of shared houses this could also cover joint purchases for the house as a whole.
After looking through their findings, Sam and Gerard want to have further conversations with, Thera colleagues, Dosh and the University of Bristol to encourage people with a learning disability to learn more about money and try to increase their independence in this area. Sam wants to look at ways to get people with a learning disability talking about money without feeling stressed and give them more of a sense of responsibility when it comes to their finances.
Sam will be presenting the workshop findings in a webinar in the autumn and publishing the results for all to learn from. Make sure to check our social media for more details on this soon! During this project, Sam says he has grown in confidence and wants to continue to do more research like this.
This project particularly benefited from Sam’s lived experience, allowing him to shape the research approach, check accessibility, and connect directly with participants so they were comfortable sharing their views.
Future project work including our upcoming webinar will benefit from this approach too, ensuring we can share important insights about how we can make things like finances accessible to people with a learning disability.