This website reports findings from a series of interlinked research projects about how capacity law works in the everyday lives of disabled people. Reports from the four interlinked research projects (Everyday Decisions, Supported Will-Making, CLARITY and COALITION) can be downloaded from this page. Contact Us for more information about this research, or for print copies of any of the reports on this page. If you need the reports in a different format to make them more accessible to you, please get in touch and we will do our best to help.

COALITION Project Report

The COALITION Project was a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, the University of Leeds, People First and Wilsons Solicitors. We used co-production research methods to investigate barriers people with learning disabilities face in seeking legal information and advice, and to explore ways to enhance the accessibility of legal information to provide more accessible legal service to the community.

Making Legal Services More Accessible: The COALITION project report is the full report from our Co-Producing Accessible Legal Information project.

In the COALITION Project we brought together a coproduction group of disabled people and legal professionals to identify priorities for accessible legal information. We offer recommendations about how to make legal services more accessible and introduce our templates for legal service providers and an accessible research toolkit.

You can download our easy read project report

Our Easy Read Project Report explains what we did in our research project, what we found out, and our recommendations for making legal services more accessible.

CLARiTY Project Report

Making Legal Information Accessible: Lessons from the CLARiTY Project is the full CLARiTY Project Report

In the CLARiTY Project Report, we report on the experience of running the CLARiTY Project. We provide detail on current legal duties to provide accessible information, reflect on our experiences of making law accessible to disabled people and family carers. We offer tips on how to make complex legal information more accessible, and make recommendations for legal service providers and regulators.

Here is our Easy Read CLARITY Report (this is a pdf file – contact us if you need it in a different way).

Click Here for Easy Read Report

Supported Will-Making: A Socio-Legal Study of Experiences, Values and Potential in Supporting Testamentary Capacity

This follow-up study to to Everyday Decisions project was undertaken to inform the review of the law of wills being undertaken by the Law Commission of England and Wales. Our research explored how supported will-making works in practice and areas where legal reform, practical changes and shifts in professional attitudes are needed to secure effective levels of support for disabled people.

On this page, you can download the findings from this follow-up study.

Full Report: Supported Will-Making

Supported Will Making Final Report Full Project Report in PDF format (tagged pdf, 1.2MB)

This full report is a long document, and it includes a lot of detail about how people could be supported to make a will. We tell the stories of some disabled people who have made wills, to help to show how support currently happens and to think through how it could happen in the future.

Easyread Report: Supported Will-Making

Support to Make a Will Easyread Summary (pdf, 1.7MB, optimised for screen readers)

The easyread findings report includes information about the Everyday Decisions research project, what we found out, and what we think should happen.

This file is in pdf format, and has been optimised for reading with a screen reader. If you need the information in a more accessible format to make it easier for you, then please get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

Supporting Legal Capacity through Care, Support and Empowerment

The Everyday Decisions project explored how intellectually disabled people make everyday decisions about a wide range of life choices and issues, and how care professionals support them to make their own decisions. This research explored how mental capacity law works in practice to support decision-making through qualitative interviews with intellectually disabled people, and care professionals.

On this page, you can download the research findings from the project.

The Full Everyday Decisions Project Report

Everyday Decisions Project Report: Full Project Report in PDF format (tagged pdf, 768KB)

This full project report provides an overall summary of our project findings. It includes detailed information on the legal issues we were interested in, our aims, objective and research questions. The full report is quite a long document, but contains a lot of information about what we found out about supporting legal capacity in everyday life for intellectually disabled people.

The EasyRead Everyday Decisions Findings Report

Everyday Decisions EasyRead Findings Report (pdf, 4MB, optimised for screen readers)

The easyread findings report includes information about the Everyday Decisions research project, what we found out, and what we think should happen.

Everyday Decisions Research Spotlight

Everyday Decisions Research Spotlight (pdf, 2MB)

In this research spotlight, we have condensed the key messages from the research, and our main recommendations into a short summary document. This 4 page summary of our research findings provides a little more detail than the easyread report, but is formatted to make it a quicker read than our full project report.

More detail about the research project, the background to our research and ideas, and discussion of emerging findings can be found on the Everyday Decisions Blog.

We are also happy to provide printed copies of any of these reports. Please contact us if you would like a paper copy of the report, or for more information about the research or our findings.

We are very grateful to CHANGE who helped us to produce the EasyRead Findings Report, and to all of the organisations and individuals who participated in the research project, or helped us to make contact with people who took part. These reports represent the views and analysis of the project research team, Professor Rosie Harding and Dr Ezgi Tascioglu, and are not necessarily the views of the research funders.

Research Findings