Tired of Spinning Plates : A Rapid Scoping Review of the Mental Health Needs and Mental Health Support of Carers of Adults with Learning Disabilities in the United Kingdom

Smith, Martina and Runswick-Cole, Katherine and Ryan, Sara and Croot, Liz and Hatton, Chris and Kassa, Clare and Cisneros, Rosemary (Rosa) and Douglas, Patty (2025) Tired of Spinning Plates : A Rapid Scoping Review of the Mental Health Needs and Mental Health Support of Carers of Adults with Learning Disabilities in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Disability and Social Justice, 5 (3). ISSN 2732-4036

Abstract

Family carers of adults with learning disabilities provide support that is not only valuable to the person they love and care for but is critical care labour for society in the UK. This care fills gaps in health and social care provision, is lifelong, and often entails longer hours of caring in comparison to other groups of carers. Despite this phenomenal and often invisible care work, how this group of carers experience their roles in relation to their mental health is poorly understood. We conducted a rapid scoping review to explore these mental health experiences, drawing upon evidence in the UK context, post the 2014 Care Act and during a period of sustained economic austerity politics. The review offers an original co-production approach to evidence scoping and synthesis, produced collaboratively from conception to synthesis with family carers and self-advocates with learning disabilities. As a political commitment to centralising the lives of people with learning disabilities and family carers in policy and research, we critique discourse and terminology choices throughout the review. Our thematic analysis of 18 evidence items resulted in four key themes constructing the mental health experiences of family carers: the unique temporalities of this group of carers; the economic value of family care; the importance of community; and ongoing ableism constructing mental health experiences. An Easy Read summary of findings is provided as an Appendix. More research is needed to assess the types and cultures of services, resources, and interventions that are utilised and perceived as effective by this group of carers in supporting their mental health and to share findings with those that are implicated in the ongoing constructions of negative mental health experiences. There is a need to shift responsibilities for caring beyond the enclosures of hyper-individualised family carer responsibility.