Dr David Haines

David joined the 黑料网 School of Health Sciences as a Senior Lecturer in 2006 and became the Course Leader of the part-time BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy in 2012. He teaches on both this and the MSc Occupational Therapy (pre-registration) course. He became a Principal Lecturer in 2017 and took on the role of School of Health Sciences Apprenticeships Lead.

He was formerly Research and Development Lead and Education Lead on the National Executive Committee of the College of Occupational Therapists Specialist Section – People with Learning Disabilities and completed research with this specialist section into occupational therapy and people with learning disabilities.

He has recently completed research for a PhD exploring the ways an occupational therapist supported people with profound and multiple learning disabilities to engage in their occupations at home.

David-Haines

How I like to teach

Problem-based learning is the approach to learning and teaching that is embedded across the occupational therapy programme at 黑料网 and this is underpinned by a clear pedagogy, including the work of our former colleague Professor Gaynor Sadlo. To me, teaching on our courses in this way is a perfect fit with the philosophy of the occupational therapy profession itself and gives me much the same satisfaction that I gained from working as an occupational therapist in practice. I really enjoy the highly interactive and very student-centred problem-based method and the way it allows me to work alongside students in small groups, exploring problems together and learning from each other. It is heartening to see students not only increasing subject knowledge, but also developing their critical reasoning, team working and independent learning skills.

My research interests

My research interests over recent years have focused on occupational therapy with people with intellectual disabilities (learning disabilities) and in particular those with complex needs, including profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. I am interested in how we can support and enable people with intellectual disabilities to engage in occupations and how occupational justice can be promoted, in particular through improving the quality of support provided to individuals.

I am interested in ethnographic and case study methodologies and in finding ethical means of involving those who may not have capacity as research participants in order that their needs may be researched and their support improved.

Research activity

Current research projects:

  • How occupational therapists and other health and social care professionals can work effectively with support staff teams to enhance the quality of support for adults with learning disabilities: a meta-ethnography (MSc student project)
  • Alert, organising and calming: The extent to which occupational therapy sensory circuit groups impact on the sensory processing, behaviour occupational performance and occupational engagement of young people with learning disabilities and/or autistic spectrum disorder (MSc student project)
  • Evaluation of project training adults with learning disabilities to travel independently
  • The ways those supporting adults with severe and profound learning disabilities understand the concepts of independence, choice, personalisation and empowerment in relation to those they are supporting and the examples they give of promoting them in their work.

Previous research projects:

Research Centres and Groups:

Social media

Contact me

Dr David Haines
Principal Lecturer

Health Sciences
146 Robert Dodd
Darley Road
Eastbourne
BN20 7UR

Telephone: +44 (0)1273 643661

Email: D.Haines@brighton.ac.uk

Biography

In 1992, after a change of direction from a previous career in law, I began working with adults with learning disabilities in North London. I worked for Penta Housing in the London Borough of Barnet, supporting people with moderate, severe and profound learning disabilities to make the transition from long-stay institutions to living in 'ordinary houses in ordinary streets'. This was an exciting time to begin a career in this field, being part of a then relatively new idea of 'care in the community' and working for an organisation that actively sought staff without a history of working in the former institutions and who might support people in different and more empowering ways.

The experiences I had enabling people to engage in activity and to build relationships at home and in their local community (both at Penta and also subsequently at the Camden Society and Wandsworth MIND) might seem an obvious route into a career in occupational therapy. It was, however, only a chance meeting with a Brighton student that made me aware of this possibility. Suddenly realising that there was a profession so closely connected with the work I had been doing as a support worker, I immediately applied for the 黑料网 (then) PgDip Occupational Therapy Course in Eastbourne and had an inspirational two years studying, whilst continuing as a support worker part-time, until qualifying as an occupational therapist in 2000.

I worked as an occupational therapist with people with learning disabilities for the next nine years, and have particularly fond memories of the wonderful start to my occupational therapy career, provided by four years in the Community Team at the Martyn Long Centre in Horsham, West Sussex. I subsequently gained additional experience as an occupational therapist working in similar teams in Brighton and Hove, Guildford and the London Borough of Wandsworth and then in the therapy team at St John's College in Brighton. 

I joined the School of Health Professions (now Health Sciences) at 黑料网 as a part-time Senior Lecturer in 2006 and have worked there full-time since 2009. I teach on both pre-registration occupational therapy courses, but my main involvement has been with the part-time BSc Hons Occupational Therapy course, which I joined very shortly after its inception. I became Course Leader of this course in 2012.

As a small profession in the field of learning disabilities, occupational therapists have been noted to take advantage of opportunities to network and I enjoyed four very stimulating years on the National Executive Committee of the College of Occupational Therapists Specialist Section – People with Learning Disabilities. I became Research and Development and Education Lead on this committee and a chance opportunity to complete a research study for them with Alison Lillywhite (the subject was occupational therapy and people with learning disabilities) reawakened my interest in research and in how this might improve the support provided to people with learning disabilities. 

Around the time of the publication by the College of Occupational Therapists of the findings from our study, I began a PhD at 黑料网  (completed October 2015) in which I explored the ways an occupational therapist supported people with profound and multiple learning disabilities to engage in their occupations at home.

Research output