I am an adult who has a diagnosis of Autism and am based in South West Wales.

When I’m not working with Carmarthenshire People First and Barod; I spend my time doing things like photography, reading, travelling, and visiting ComicCons. All whilst supporting a local business who specializes in loose-leaf tea by doing the occasional review on their products.

As an activist researcher; my interests include;

• To promote the rights of individuals who have a Learning Disability so they take control of their own lives and to have a voice in developing and changing services
• to help the creation of services that work in the same way as People First groups as well as documents that are in a format that can be understood
• to understand how co-productive research works
• to understand how Service Providers communicate between each other and how their information is stored

Current projects

• Humanising Healthcare project. This ESRC funded project is run by Dan Goodley from Sheffield University. It is about putting people and their views and feelings at the centre of their healthcare.
• Barod Data Project. I am leading this project that involves analysis of data collected by GP surgeries and NHS Health Boards

Past Projects

• What makes a Good Self Advocacy Project – a toolkit. This was funded by  the Community Fund of the National Lottery. It was led by All Wales People First. We produced a toolkit and a video.

Publications

Barod was invited by the editor of the British Journal of Learning Disabilities to do the first 'In Response' where we looked at an academic paper and wrote what we thought about it.

Beth Lewis, Simon Richards, Simon Rice, Anne Collis (2020) A response to Bates, C et al (2020) “Always trying to walk a bit of a tightrope”: The role of social care staff in supporting adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to develop and maintain loving relationships. British Journal of Learning Disabilities 48(4): 269-271.

A. Armstrong, M. Cansdale, A. R. Collis, B. E. Collis, S. Rice & J. Walmsley (2019) What makes a good self-advocacy project? The added value of co-production, Disability & Society, 34:7-8, 1289-1311,