Dr Francesca Ribenfors

I am a qualitative researcher in the Department of Social Care and Social Work and a member of the Learning Disabilities and Autism research cluster.

My research interests lie in social care with a particular focus on people with learning disabilities, their families, and the impact the different systems and processes, people are drawn into when accessing health and social care services, have. My doctoral thesis, Possibilities and Boundaries: Assembling an Understanding of Transition to Adulthood for Young People with Learning Disabilities, critically analyses transition to adulthood within a feminist and critical disability studies framework. It troubles the normative foundations of transition, which position young people with learning disabilities as different and, by adopting a new materialist lens, proposes an alternative approach to transition which bridges the divide between theory and practice. This research cemented a passion for exploring how health and social care processes can better support those who require them. It has also shaped my position as a researcher firmly committed to ethical, reflexive, and sensitive research.

I am currently working on several NIHR-funded research projects. Witness to Harm, holding to account: Improving patient, family, and colleague witnesses’ experience of Fitness to Practise proceedings; Tired of Spinning Plates: An exploration of the mental health experiences of adults/older carers of adults with learning disabilities, and 200 Lives: Evaluating supported living and residential care for adults with learning disabilities. In addition, I have been working alongside Professor Sara Ryan (MMU) on Exploring Inquests, which examines experiences of coronial investigations when the person who died had a learning disability, mental ill health, or was autistic. 

I am experienced in a range of qualitative methods, including ethnography and institutional ethnography, and I have a strong interest in research ethics, feminist epistemologies and critical disability studies.