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Research by Melanie Nind of the University of Southampton and her collaborator (Hewett) has had a national and international impact on the practice of professionals who teach people with severe learning disabilities. The Intensive Interaction approach is included in UK National Curriculum guidance, the Government's Strategy for people with learning disabilities, and it is used across education, psychology, social care and speech and occupational therapies. Nind's research has shaped the implementation of Intensive Interaction, and provided practitioners in Eastern Europe, New Zealand, and Australia with new data and concepts that help to inform practice to enrich the lives of a vulnerable population.
The research undertaken by the Social History of Learning Disability (SHLD) group at the Open University (OU) has not only shaped the policy and practice of service providers but has transformed the learning skills of the disabled people taking part, some of whom have gone on to develop international profiles as advocates and campaigners. Its work, looking at the history, policy and practice of learning disability, has been pioneering in its use of an inclusive approach, as well as innovative life story work for the benefit of person-centred care. As a result it has this year been shortlisted in the Department of Health's 2013 Good Practice Project, which was initiated in the wake of the Winterbourne View patient abuse scandal.
A participatory public artwork commissioned as a part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, The Boat Project's impact reaches to a national audience of 440,698 while a global audience of many millions encountered the work via print and broadcast media. Outreach activity engaged over 100 schools while some thirty public artworks were commissioned in response to the project, underlining its impact on local authority cultural provision and the professional fields of contemporary performance, theatre and public art. The project created 22 paid positions, 80 volunteer positions and an on-going commercial venture.
The Enchanted Palace was a collaborative project between theatre company WildWorks and Historic Royal Palaces (HRP). It transformed the State Apartments at Kensington Palace into an interactive exhibition (26 March 2010 — 1 June 2012) which brought the stories and the palace to life.
The Enchanted Palace enabled Kensington Palace to remain open during a two-year £12 million refurbishment. The project brought in income, safeguarded jobs and drew in new audiences. Thirteen community groups, schools and colleges were involved in its creation while 10 high-profile designers were invited to create work in response to the stories of the palace. The Enchanted Palace increased the numbers of Palace visitors (even during this refurbishment period) and was widely covered in the press featuring on the International Council of Museums website www.clothestellstories.com as an example of good practice.
This research on deinstitutionalisation and high quality community-based services has helped transform the political and public debate, informing the management of services and improving the quality of life of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) by changing the practices and attitudes of staff. It has led to people leading more active and fulfilling lives and experiencing more choice and control. These impacts have reached far beyond the UK, extending to Ireland, Central and Eastern Europe, Australia and elsewhere.
Departmental staff Mike Pearson, Mike Brookes and Simon Banham conceived, designed and directed theatre productions of Aeschylus's The Persians (2010) for NTW's launch season and Coriolan/us for NTW in the World Shakespeare Festival/London 2012 at sites outside the auditorium.
The impacts of these productions are upon:
1) Cultural life — in generating new forms of artistic expression, delivering innovative performance products, and enriching public appreciation, understanding and imagination;
2) Policy and practice — in enhancing the status of NTW, informing and influencing programming and demonstrating that work of international standard can be produced regionally;
3) Professional practice — in pioneering and contributing original ideas, methods and approaches.
The impacts of the research include: a) promotion of self-esteem in transgendered youth; b) changing attitudes among school and college students and training teachers; c) modelling best practice in support organisations; d) shaping opinion in influential forums up to Parliamentary level. These impacts are planned, centrally coordinated and delivered by an infrastructure developed out of the research for this purpose: Gendered Intelligence (GI). Co-founded by researcher Catherine McNamara, GI is the leading organisation in its field, with impacts felt nation-wide, from Plymouth to East Anglia. The value of GI's impact has been recognised at governmental level by the Minister for Schools.
This case study draws together the project-based work of a number of researchers within the UoA 35 based in the Lincoln School of Performing Arts. The thematic link that unites this work is that it has all benefitted marginalized and disempowered communities locally , regionally and nationally by using performance to facilitate dialogue, participation, intervention, and empowerment.
The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling (GEECS) is the only UK academic research centre devoted to the study of storytelling and its applications. Our research has supported the development and renewed public awareness of storytelling as a powerful, democratic art form. The impact of our storytelling research is both cultural and social as it has generated new understandings of community formation, connectivity and capacity through creative participation. Collaboration with 16 national, international and local partners since 2008 enables the impact of our research to secure both a wide reach within civil society and attain real significance within local communities.
This case study describes the impact of 15 years of research on the health and well-being of people with severe and complex disabilities. Through collaboration with education and disability services, research-based guidance has been developed on communication intervention and safe eating and drinking, informing:
Outputs are also cited in many education, health and social care internet advice sources (see sections 4 and 5).