Our Academic Lead Research Professor Iva Strnadová speaks to Justen Thomas and Benjamin Garcia-Lee about co-producing research with people with disability and how they used our guidelines Doing Research Inclusively: Co-Production in Action.
Iva Strnadová is a Professor in Special Education and Disability Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Her research aims to contribute to better understanding and the improvement of the life experiences of people with disabilities, especially people with intellectual disabilities. Combining research with advocacy is essential in her research program, which builds on supporting the self-determination (including self-advocacy) of people with intellectual disabilities, and is grounded in an innovative inclusive research approach, in which people with intellectual disabilities are included in the role of researcher.
Benjamin Garcia-Lee is a Scientia PhD scholar in the School of Education at UNSW Sydney. He is an experienced inclusive researcher and practitioner and is using an inclusive research approach in his PhD about what belonging means to people with intellectual disabilities experiencing multiple forms of marginalisation. He has been an advocate, social worker and ally for and with people with intellectual disabilities and complex support needs for close to a decade.
Justen Thomas is a trained peer-to-peer facilitator, advocate, and motivational speaker. He believes in raising the bar to achieve his goals and to inspire future generations to come. He has used his personal experiences of living with intellectual disability and coming in contact with the criminal justice system to inspire others to turn the negatives into positives and to make smart choices to stay on the right track. He works in the advocacy team at NSW Council for Intellectual Disabilities and as a co-researcher at UNSW.
