‘Coming Home: Community for One’

Exhibition and Reception, sponsored by Jackie Baillie, MSP, in Scottish Parliament 25 - 27th February 2025

The Aiteal Trust , collaborated in a research project with partners PAMIS, (the Scottish charity for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, their families and carers), the University of Portsmouth, Edinburgh Napier, and Louis Sainsbury, whose story we told in ‘Louis’s Story: the Story of Appletree’.

Our Chair, Kate Sainsbury, organised an Exhibition of the research and a Reception, at Scottish Parliament, sponsored by Jackie Baillie, MSP. Our intention was to inform MSPs and their researchers, about Scottish Government’s ‘Coming Home’ work and the experience of people affected by it. ‘Coming Home’ is the policy to move people with learning disabilities out of hospital into homes within community. We used a storytelling method based on a river, KAWA, to tell Louis’s story and the story of developing Appletree. Barriers and facilitators were shown as boulders and flow.

Edinburgh Napier colleagues, translated the original research materials into ‘liquid’ book form, that can be seen on this website under ‘Research’. For the Exhibition and Reception, they applied their graphic and design skills to a large-scale display of complex information.

The Reception was a celebration with Louis himself, as Lead Researcher, with other parents and families whose loved-ones are still detained, to give them hope that a future is possible. A gathering of leaders in Human Rights , Social care, Government, Representatives of people with Learning disabilities, and faith groups, listened to Minister for Social Care, Maree Todd, committing the Government to continuing progress.