I work in a residential school for young people with severe learning difficulties and challenging behaviours, I am also studying a degree in learning disabilities. I find it concerning that the high levels of staff surveillance in the school restricts the opportunities for these people to make friends and socially interact with their peers. Despite their disabilities I know that these people are capable of making friends and of displaying a like or dislike of someone, this however is often not taken into account as they have no say about who they live with or are paired up with for activities. I would like to study this for my final year dissertation, but as yet haven’t had much luck in finding any research that is relevant to this topic, particularly given the fact that I want to concentrate on residential homes. Can anyone enlighten me?