Upcoming Research at Barnwood Trust

Barnwood Trust is dedicated to understanding the challenges faced by disabled people and people with mental health conditions in Gloucestershire and using this insight to inform positive change. 

As part of our ongoing commitment to this, we’re embarking on 2 new research projects aimed at addressing key areas of need: Access to transport and Access to money advice. 

Access to transport  

The challenge of accessible transport provision in Gloucestershire is an issue which comes up everywhere we look and has been discussed in meet up sessions with our Barnwood Circle members over the past couple of years. Barnwood has decided to lead are search project in this area, looking to explore how Barnwood might act to improve provision of accessible transport in the county.  

As this is a huge topic, we’ve started by doing a broad review of existing research and evidence, exploring what is already known about barriers to accessing different types of transport for people with a range of experiences and accessibility needs. We’re now planning some new research to explore the local picture in more detail, which will include finding out from a range of professionals in Gloucestershire what the barriers to change are, what work is already being done to try to improve the situation, and where Barnwood is best placed to contribute to or complement that work.   

Access to money advice – and developing our research methods

Being able to get the right advice about money is vital for many disabled people and people with mental health conditions. There are a lot of providers in Gloucestershire offering highly skilled advice about budgeting, benefits, and debt, but not all advice provision is as accessible as it could be.  

This has led us to a new research project: How accessible is money advice in Gloucestershire? And what could help make it more inclusive?” 

We’re developing a project over the next few months with Barnwood Circle members, where we’ll be exploring different research methods together, testing how accessible they are, considering how we might adapt them to be more accessible, and exploring how experts by lived experience could be involved in delivering them. We’ll take all that learning into developing our research into the accessibility of money advice in Gloucestershire.