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Research

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About
What is research?
Research Projects
Impact
What's next?
Contact
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About the Purple Research Group

We are Charlie, Ella, Leanne, Liam, Janine, Jo, John, Sam and Tracey and we are a team of researchers who all go to and/or support someone who attends the Purple Patch Lifelong Learning Programmes. We work with a researcher from the University of Leeds, called Melissa – together we are the Purple Research Group.

Our vision is that learning-disabled people are involved in all research.

Did you know that our research is award-winning?!

We were thrilled to receive a University of Leeds 2024 Research Culture Award for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Research Practices, for our project ‘Inclusivity in research: Including people with a learning disability in research as leaders, researchers, partners and participants’ alongside the marvellous Dr Amy Russell, Dr Melissa Kirby, Speak Up Self Advocacy and Learning Disability England. 

Our project was described by the reviewers: “Just incredible to see a proposal for recruiting people with learning disabilities into the research community. Hugely valuable work, great innovation and significant impact on research and the individuals involved.”

We know how powerful research can be, and believe wholeheartedly that learning-disabled can, and should, be involved at all stages.

What is Research?

‘Research’ can mean a lot of different things – for us, research is about trying to answer a question that you do not know the answer to. Lots of people use research: scientists trying to create new medicines, academics wanting to find out why things happen, organisations asking participants their thoughts and opinions, even chocolate makers asking people what their next creation should be!

We believe that anyone can be a researcher if they want to be. We know that learning-disabled adults can make great researchers and we want to make sure that other learning-disabled people can share their experience and expertise.

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Research Projects

Click on a dropdown below for information about our research projects.

Three women are sat around a table. In front of them are various pieces of paper and post it-notes arranged within 2 large hoops.
Three women are sat around a table. In front of them are lots of objects, including a magnifying glass, a blow-up microphone and a wooly hat. The women are looking at a small circular object in one of their hands.
Three women are sat around a table. In front of them are various pieces of paper and post it-notes arranged within 2 large hoops.

A Purple PhD

We started doing research in August 2020 as part of Melissa’s PhD. We spent 3 years learning all about research and worked together to find out what people think about Purple Patch Arts. We also thought about exciting ways we can share our experiences at Purple Patch Arts with other people.

Our research themes were : “People”, “Arts and Variety” and “Accessibility and Support”. We used these themes to help us to understand our experiences at Purple Patch Arts.

We met every two weeks over Zoom to do our research from August 2020 – September 2021. For each theme, we read about research other people had done and chose our research questions. We collected our evidence using creative, inclusive  and interactive research methods: we created posters and artistic responses, designed questionnaires, took photographs, wrote poems, kept a research diary and did interviews.

Finally, we analysed our data to see what we had found out. Melissa completed the PhD in 2023 and the Purple PhD thesis is available to read online here.

If you would like to read more about how we worked together to do our research, you can read our blog here.

Making Research Accessible

Earlier this year, we were thrilled to receive funding from the Young Foundation’s Community Knowledge Fund for an exciting project that aims to break down barriers for learning-disabled people to be meaningfully involved in research.

During the project, we learned about different types of research and identified what might stop learning-disabled people from being involved. We then came up with a list of recommendations about how research can be made accessible. 

Our ‘River of Research’ below shows the findings from the project:

An illustration of a river that describes our journey on the project and shows our findings. The illustration includes trees, birds, fish and a boat.

Cick below to hear the Purple Research Group talking through our ‘River of Research’ findings;

https://purplepatcharts.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/River-of-Research.mp3

The Purple Patch - A Research Comic

We are very excited to present our research as a comic book: ‘The Purple Patch’! You can read it below and find out more here.

The creation of our comic book was generously funded by the Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE)

The Purple Patch is illustrated by Molly Pukes.

Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance: Creative Health Quality Framework

We were invited to be a case study to test the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA)’s Creative Health Quality Framework, to explore how accessible it was for learning-disabled people. We put on lots of different hats for this project (quite literally, we played a game of musical hats!) to consider the framework both as researchers and as Purple Patch participants.

We approached the different parts of the framework separately, to help us test how they all worked together: first we looked only at the images used in the framework, then the titles of each principle, and finally the definitions of each principle. We shared our understanding of each principle, and reflected on how they applied to our work as researchers, and our experiences at Purple Patch. We also came up with our own definitions for each principle within the framework, which were more grounded in our real-life experiences.

We loved helping CHWA to assess their Creative Health Quality Framework, and the project really aligned with our vision that learning-disabled people be involved in all stages of research. In order for this to happen, new research and evaluation tools need to be accessible to learning-disabled people!

Lizzie, who created our case study, told us she would take away the following from working with us:

“One thing I will be taking away from this experience is the power of collaboration in developing a shared understanding. Watching the PRG members work together to define the principles in a way that felt true to their experiences was incredibly impactful. It reminded me that co-creation isn’t just about working together but about allowing space for different voices and interpretations.”

You can read more about the Creative Health Quality Framework here.

Creative Inclusion: Practical Guidance for Accessible Research

We are so excited to continue our work with Dr Melissa Kirby and Dr Amy Russell at the University of Leeds, to create resources which will support researchers to involve learning-disabled people in meaningful ways in their research.

Our project will focus on the practicalities of co-production, by developing and testing guidance to support researchers to be aware of the planning, resources and creative activities needed for true participatory research, which is also enjoyable and meaningful for learning-disabled people!

We will also be creating a glossary that explains research terms in an accessible way, to ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of research. This project will build on our River of Research, and bring us one step closer to our vision of learning-disabled people being involved in all research! 

Illustration of a shovel in the ground.

Impact

As we have worked together to learn about research, make new discoveries, and advocate for learning-disabled people being involved in all aspects of research, we have recognised the impact being a part of the Purple Research Group has had on us: 

An image with purple and teal clouds above orange and pink trees. In each cloud there is a quote. The quotes are:<br />
"I want to prove people wrong […] everybody thinks I can’t do it. I learned how to do the research. I want to show them how I can do research"<br />
“We’ve gained new friendships along the way”<br />
"There is new things you are good at, and one of them, for all of us today, is research”<br />
“It’s given me confidence to go on and do a two and a half year more research programme, which I don’t think I might have had the confidence to have done"<br />
“I learned skills I didn’t know I had”<br />
“we’ve all led on it [the research] as equals”<br />
"I didn’t like new people or new things, but by the middle of being a researcher I changed"<br />
“I've realised it was a bit bigger world than me. I didn't expect that I could talk to people at the university. Other groups are listening!”
An illustration of a watering can.

What’s Next?

We want to do more research and pass on what we’ve learned. We’re looking for funding to be able to create training and information to help people to do accessible and inclusive research.

We also want to grow our network. If you’re interested in getting involved, please get in touch!

research@purplepatcharts.org

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Contact

If you have any questions about the research you can contact Melissa or Fran. We would love to hear from you!

A photo of Melissa smiling, looking straight at the camera

Melissa, Community Research Manager

Email: research@purplepatcharts.org

A photo of Fran smiling

Fran, Chief Executive Officer

 

Email: fran@purplepatcharts.org

William

I’ve learnt lots of new things, and I look forward to what we’re doing each week. I’m happy that I’m part of a group and am able to be myself at Purple Patch.

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Megan

The best bit is seeing a sense of achievement in the participants as they learn, have fun and become more confident and independent.

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John

If I didn’t have a bursary I wouldn’t be able to come, and I’m so glad that I can. It makes me happy to be part of the group.

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Alex

Purple Patch Arts is one of the most innovative, creative and inspiring organisations we have had the pleasure of working with.

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Diane

Purple Patch is a very supportive, nurturing and caring environment. Staff are good at knowing and adapting to people’s needs and helping them to progress.

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Linda

The connection you create with people is what really makes this job great; knowing that what you do could make someone’s day a little better.

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Latest News

To celebrate our 15th Birthday in October 2024, we hosted ‘The Purple Patch Approach’, a day of interactive workshops and expert insights, to encourage other organisations to use our approach in their work to involve, inspire and engage learning-disabled people.

You can now watch our video about the day and ways to get involved:

Watch Video
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Purple Patch Arts is a charity and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales

Charity number: 1178031
Company number: 07047385
Registered office: Hillside Enterprise Centre, Beeston Road, Leeds LS11 8ND

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