Sexuality and relationships

From research to policy to action

Kelley Johnson, Patsie Frawley and Maeve Foreman
University of Dublin, Trinity College

It can be very difficult for people with learning difficulties to be listened to and properly supported with sexuality and relationships. Kelley and Patsie, with other researchers spent three years talking with people in Australia about how they saw their sexual lives and relationships. The research was called Living Safer Sexual Lives. When the research was finished Patsie and Kelley worked with people with learning disabilities to develop workshops to talk about sexuality and relationships with staff, families and people with learning disabilities. They also worked with other people to change policies about these issues.

This paper draws on our experience in Australia and Ireland of working to develop sexuality and relationship policies at both a government and agency level using the Living Safer Sexual Lives research and resources. The paper uses case studies of this work to focus on a number of themes including: involving people with learning disabilities in policy development, attitudes and values which make it difficult (or easy) to develop good policies and decision making, finding the balance between duty of care and rights, cultural factors and the gap between policy and action.