VOICES

Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-Determination

Principal Investigator: Dr Eilionóir Flynn

Partner Investigator: Dr Anna Arstein Kerslake

Research Assistant:

The Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-determination (VOICES) project aims to change the law in relation to the right to legal capacity for people with disabilities. This project will take a radical approach to legal capacity law reform by using the stories of those with lived experience of disability and pairing them with legal or social sciences scholars to develop grounded recommendations for reform.

In this project we are especially interested in working with people with learning disabilities, dementia, acquired brain injury, autism, and mental health experience. The project is based in Ireland and the working language for the project is English – but we welcome participants from all over the world and want to include a diverse range of experiences in the project.

The pairs will work together to write a narrative based on that person’s lived experience and a critical legal, policy or social response to that experience. This method of research places the focus on the stories, and experiences of people with disabilities and not on existing legal writing written by non-disabled scholars. On completion of the project a selection of the stories and responses will be published in a book.

There are many different ways to get involved in the project – from joining our mailing list or attending our events, to agreeing to share your story or write a response. There are different ways to tell your story too – by video, in writing, by speaking at one of our workshops or conferences, or sending it in to be posted on this blog. For more information on how to get involved click here.

Full information is available at the VOICES website: http://ercvoices.com/