Race Equality Foundation - Research

<< back to Projects

Talking to black older people about research

Jabeer Butt, Deputy Director, REU.
Alex O'Neil, Principal Research Manager, JRF.

Background

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) Social Care and Disability Committee funded REU to discuss with black and minority ethnic older people research and its contribution to bringing about change in their experiences.

What we did

We prepared a paper reviewing existing research and this was then used to have discussions with older people at meetings in Leeds, London and Bristol. We managed to secure the involvement of Asian, African and Caribbean older people and used facilitators who had community language skills to ensure that we effectively communicated with all the older people who participated.

The older people agreed that much of the research reflected their experiences, but they were concerned about the limited involvement of older people in setting the agenda, as well as the lack of change that has resulted from the gathering of this evidence. They were clear that work in the future needed to explore how to bring about change. These discussions informed JRF's call for proposals on work with black and minority ethnic older people.

Outcomes

The findings from this piece of work are outlined in the report Butt, J and O'Neill, A (2004) 'Lets move on ' black and minority older people's views on research findings.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation findings for this project are available at www.jrf.org.uk

The publication is available to download from Joseph Rowntree Foundation www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop or can be obtained from York Publishing Services 01904 430033.

Useful Race Equality Foundation publications

• Respect: learning materials for social care staff working with black and minority ethnic older people by Jabeer Butt, Leandra Box and Suzanne Lyn-Cook
• Discussion paper 8: Engaging black and minority ethnic families in policy development and implementation by Tracey Bignall and Leandra Box

Click here to see all Race Equality Foundation publications.