We are delighted to virtually welcome Dr Tom Ryan and Elsie Ledger from the NIHR School of Social Care Research, University of Sheffield to present ‘No one wants to talk about it: Exploring transitions in family care for people with learning disabilities‘ as part of our Seminar Series.
Date: 16th June 2026
Time: 12:30-13:30 UK time
Online event, please click here to register using a Google form.
Having trouble accessing this form? Please contact us via our website, or email centreforcare@sheffield.ac.uk.
About the seminar
A particular concern for people with learning disabilities and their families is what will happen when family carers can no longer support them. These are difficult conversations for families because discussions are bound up with conversations on death and dying and generalised anxiety about the lack of appropriate support for people with learning disabilities. This means future planning with people with learning disabilities and family members is often poorly managed and support for this often unavailable. This can lead to emergency admissions to inappropriate or poor quality care settings and cause emotional distress for all family members. This talk draws on research with siblings of people with learning disabilities to explore the topic, alongside work from a project specifically about care transitions in later life working with people with learning disabilities, siblings and parent carers. This data highlights concerns of siblings of people with learning disabilities and the implications this has on their sibling relationships. Further, understandings of sibling relationships and care will be explored, with questions asked of the lack of choice offered to people with learning disabilities in their futures around who they want to be caring for them and the expectations placed on siblings to step in.
About the authors
Tom Ryan
Tom is a research associate working on the NIHR SSCR funded project ‘No one wants to talk about it: Exploring transitions in family care for people with learning disabilities’. This project explores care and sibling relationships with a focus on care transitions in later life for people with learning disabilities. More widely, Tom’s research explores sibling relationships and learning disability, looking at challenging commonplace deficit understandings through a focus on counter-narratives. Tom’s PhD centred around everyday life and siblinghood, looking at how mundane childhood stories can be understood as counter-narratives when considered in relation to wider discussions of learning disability and siblinghood.
Elsie Ledger
Elsie is a research trainee with the School for Social Care Research, as part of her role she is supporting this SSCR funded project. Elsie’s professional experience lies in dementia services leadership within the charity sector, with experience in co-production of services with people living with dementia. Elsie has experience navigating difficult conversations with families of older adults, and she is looking forward to developing her research skills while supporting the No One Wants To Talk About It project.
Please click here to register using a Google form.
Having trouble accessing this form? Please contact us via our website, or email centreforcare@sheffield.ac.uk.
The Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities (CIRCLE) and Centre for Care Seminar Series
In this seminar series we invite colleagues, partners and experts, whose work aligns with the mission of our Centre, to share their work with us and our audiences, to deepen our understanding of the critical issues in social care in the UK and around the world.
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