Evaluating the Feasibility of the Participant-Led Video Intervention to Train Support Workers From the Perspective of...

Tailored disability support is fundamental to the lives of adults with disability and complex needs. However, support quality is inconsistent. An intervention was co-designed to help people with disability direct their supports: participant-led videos (PLVs). Following a successful pilot study, this study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of the use of PLVs by sector professionals working with people with disability in the community.

Sixteen sector professionals attended a training workshop on PLVs. Following the workshop, five sector professionals were funded to collaborate with people with disability to produce PLVs. The training workshop was evaluated using an online survey (n = 15) and a 1-month follow-up interview (n = 8). Post-production interviews (n = 4) were conducted to evaluate the experience of producing a PLV.

All sector professionals endorsed the training workshop and reported high levels of confidence in producing videos following the workshop. Highlights of the workshop included the centrality of the voice of people with disability and the design and quality of the content. All participants planned to implement what they had learnt and create videos with people they worked with. The experience evaluation findings were also positive, with all sector professionals endorsing the usefulness of PLVs as a tool to capture genuine behaviours and enable disability support workers to get to know the individual. Sector professionals saw the value of the intervention in helping to give people with disability a voice and minimise misrepresentation of individuals.

This study demonstrates the feasibility of PLVs outside of the team that developed the intervention. This evaluation contributes to an evidence base for funding to facilitate the development of PLVs as a tool to help improve the quality of support and maximise autonomy for people with complex needs. Future research is required to evaluate the longer-term impact of PLVs on support quality.