Building bridges: a systematic and collaborative approach to extending protection and abuse prevention strategies for women with intellectual disabilities in communities

This article outlines an action research project undertaken in a regional community in Australia aimed at addressing issues of sexuality for people with intellectual disabilities in a regional community. The paper focuses on issues of sexual vulnerability, protection, response to abuse and abuse prevention in a community context. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section outlines the rationale for the project and its genesis. It then identifies the principles that underpinned the project and briefly discusses the theoretical orientations that informed the project. The second section describes the action research process undertaken in executing the project, focussing specifically on systematic, collaborative and developmental elements of the research strategy. The third section provides some evaluative reflection on some of the more difficult and problematic elements of the project. The paper demonstrates that projects aimed at addressing issues of sexual vulnerability and abuse of people with intellectual disabilities that are informed by community action research have the capacity to promote positive social change.