Summary

The National Lottery funded project Creating Independent Futures: An Evaluation of Services Led By Disabled People began on January 1st 2000. The project is jointly co-ordinated by BCODP, NCIL and the BCODP's Disability Research Unit(DRU), Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds and is being conducted by Colin Barnes, Geof Mercer and Hannah Morgan at the DRU.

The research has three key aims. Firstly to provide a critical evaluation of the development, organisation, and services provided by CILs and similar user led initiatives through out the UK. Secondly, the study will identify the principal forces - economic, political, and social -hindering their further development. The third aim is to produce and disseminate, in a variety of accessible formats, findings and recommendations to disabled people, their organisations, and policy makers in both the public and private sectors.

The project will run for two years and comprises 4 key stages:

(1) establishing boundaries and criteria,
(2) in-depth analysis of user led organisations,
(3) user interviews,
(4) analysis and dissemination.

Data collection will include focus groups, large scale surveys, semi-structured interviews with CIL staff, users, other relevant organisations, and extensive validation and dissemination procedures.

The project is directed by a research team that includes representatives of NCIL, disabled people and researchers.

For further information please contact:
Hannah Morgan
Research Officer
Disability Research Unit
Department of Sociology & Social Policy
University of Leeds
Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

telephone +44 113 2334426
email H.Morgan@leeds.ac.uk