Author: Tania Hall
Hall, Tania, 2021 “I hate group homes. They suck.” Why people with disabilities deploy YouTube to disclose experiences of group home violence, abuse and neglect, Flinders University, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
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This doctoral research analyzes and respects the voices of men and women with disabilities, their families and carers, with the aim of theorizing and understanding disability group home violence, abuse and neglect. This research sought to capture people with disabilities, their families and carers in their own way, expressing their views on what they felt were the most important aspects of their group home experience.
Social workers are often activating research into sensitive social areas of interest and are bound by the ethical code to do no harm. Social research into sensitive issues and the principle of doing no harm can be in conflict for social workers. This thesis argues that social workers should consider research methods that seek to understand, to respect and to do no harm. This thesis summons unobtrusive research methods and uses data that already exist. Therefore, re-traumatization is not enacted. The material available on digitized platforms can offer ethical options and research care – and care in research - when investigating sensitive issues. This unobtrusive research activates social media, an information-rich data set, that is unique in nature and disengaged from the limitations of the Hawthorne effect, where participants changing their behaviour because they are being observed. Unobtrusive research methods were deployed to thematically analyze over one hundred disintermediated videos uploaded on YouTube by members of the disability community, expressing their views about community housing. Using English search terms, the data set deployed in this doctoral research captured and investigated experiences from men and women with disabilities, their families and carers. Data saturation was achieved once a total of one hundred and five videos were summoned from a total of thirty-three YouTube channels. These disintermediated videos were transcribed and then thematically analyzed. The linguistic limitation of this study was also reinforced by the requirement for access to the online environment generally, and YouTube specifically. Noting these variables, this data set transcended national boundaries, but excluded the experiences of people whom did not have internet accessibility.
This research demonstrated how the disability community has used YouTube to challenge silences, build communities and empower themselves. The advantages of deploying YouTube as a public media broadcasting platform were considered. This research provided evidence from people with disabilities, their families and carers, to support the argument that internet accessibility is an essential safeguarding measure for vulnerable, hidden, disempowered and disenfranchised communities. This thesis demonstrates how YouTube has been leveraged by the disability community to expose the gross violations of human rights and injustices they have suffered in disability group homes. The data set revealed that this vulnerable community was not safe in their own homes and that their family members felt powerless to help. The narratives of men and women, their families and carers, were used in the configuration of violence, abuse and neglect against people with disabilities living in group homes. This research highlighted the ability of YouTube as a social media platform to understand hard-to-reach communities.
Search term strategies were used to summon over one hundred disintermediated videos about group home experiences by men and women with disabilities, their families and carers. The men and women whose disintermediated YouTube videos were deployed in this research were unified in their experiences that disability group homes were environments that perpetrated and perpetuated violence, abuse and neglect towards this vulnerable community. Men and women with disabilities, their families and carers, were frustrated by daily experiences of violence, abuse and neglect and deployed YouTube to expose these injustices. Thematic analysis was used to identify four main overarching themes that emerged from the data set; the disadvantage of the neoliberal group home, disheartening re-institutionalization of the disability sector, harmful interpersonal relationships and breaking the silence of disability. An integrated literature review was used to contextualize the findings within existing disability theory. The narrative of the disability community was used to affirm and extend existing disability theory.
My original contribution to knowledge is the development of a trauma-sensitive social media research method that included and affirmed the already existing narrative of the disability community into the theorization of disability group home violence, abuse and neglect. This thesis demonstrated that YouTube as a data set provided quality information that was rich and robust. Thoughts, feelings and perceptions of people with disabilities, their families and carers, were freely conveyed through the video format in a way that was appropriate and ‘owned’ by the individuals themselves. This quality of information would be unlikely to be sourced from obtrusive research methods such as interviews or surveys. This was a strength of the unobtrusive research method used in the field of disability research. The researcher did not create, shape or frame data. Instead, autonomy and rights were confirmed for those with disabilities. Their voice was respected, as it was their ability to express their views on their own terms. Further, the video format enabled data to be captured that flowed freely and was not restricted by a keyboard or literacy levels. People with disabilities spoke at their own pace, in their own time. The disability community itself was in control of what they disclosed about their group home living experiences. This rich information was used to affirm and extend existing disability theory about harmful group home experiences.
Keywords: disability, group home, violence, abuse, neglect, YouTube, unobtrusive research methods
Subject: Social Work thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2021
School: College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
Supervisor: Professor Tara Brabazon