Creating opportunities for convivial encounters for people with intellectual disabilities: “It looks like an accident”

Abstract

Background: "Convivial encounter" provides a new lens for understanding social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, characterised by shared activity and friendly interactions with strangers without intellectual disabilities. Places, props and support practices facilitate incidental convivial encounters. This study explored processes for deliberately creating opportunities for such encounters. Methods: A case study design used mixed methods to collect data from two disability organisations about convivial encounters the people they supported experienced and staff practices that created these. Results: Most commonly convivial encounters created involved repeated moments of shared activity through which people became known by name by others without disabilities. Eight approaches and five processes were used to create these opportunities for encounter. Conclusions: The study provides a blueprint for scaling up or creating interventions to create opportunities for convivial encounters, and opens lines of enquiry about staff competences needed and parameters for costing this type of intervention.

Possibility and risk in encounter between people with and without intellectual disability

“…In urban studies, encounter literature has often focused on encounter between strangers (Fincher & Iveson, 2008;Wilson & Darling, 2016). In intellectual disability research, a shift has occurred with greater attention to repeat encounter where people are no longer strangers to one another (Bigby & Anderson, 2020;Wiesel & Bigby, 2014). In such repeat encounters some of the risk of the first encounter with a stranger may no longer be present; and yet the repeat encounter can still be an "encounter" in the full sense of the word, with a degree of unpredictability and uncertainty about potential harms and rewards.…”

“…In our previous work on encounter (Bigby & Anderson, 2020;Bigby & Wiesel, 2011Wiesel & Bigby, 2014;Wiesel et al, 2013), through hundreds of hours of interviews and participant observations, we have exposed a wide range of motivations that drive encounter between people with intellectual disability, support workers, and other community members. These range from self-interested gains to altruistic motivations, and from small acts of kindness towards an individual to wider considerations about social change at scale.…”

“…Fifth, existing literature emphasises shared purpose activities that are non-competitivesuch as a dance class or volunteering eventare often more inclusive, and more likely to enable convivial encounter for people with intellectual disability (Bigby & Anderson, 2020;Craig & Bigby, 2015;Wiesel et al, 2013). But perhaps it is not competition itself (with its structured risks and rewards), that is exclusionary, rather the absence of a level playing field that skews the balance of risk and reward.…”

Researching belonging with people with learning disabilities: Self‐building active community lives in the context of personalisation

“…Through taking part in these types of activities, people with learning disabilities gain greater opportunities for “convivial encounters” (Wiesel & Bigby, 2016; Bigby & Wiesel, 2019), where strangers experience temporary shared identification with each other. For people with learning disabilities, encounters with strangers are an important aspect of belonging and can create opportunities to achieve more meaningful levels of engagement, categorised as “everyday recognition” and “becoming known” within their communities (Bigby & Anderson, 2021). There has also been greater engagement with how these encounters can be facilitated, through for example the presence of a dog, and participation within social enterprises, community groups, classes and volunteering (Bould et al, 2018; see also Bredewold, 2020).…”