This is our ninth What’s New and it is an opportunity to update you on developments within Research in Practice for Adults and to keep you informed of things that are happening within our network.

Our network

We are delighted to welcome the London Borough of Wandsworth and Norfolk to our network. We now have 38 Partner agencies and the networking benefits grow with each new addition. If you are interested in joining our network or would like to discuss the benefits of membership please do not
hesitate to contact alison@ripfa.org.uk.

Evidence in practice.

February is the month in which we hold our Link Officer Annual Meeting and we have just held our third one. We rely heavily on the skills, networks and good will of our Link Officers to lead the
promotion of evidence-informed practice and spread the word about what we are doing to their colleagues in our Partner agencies.

The Annual Meeting provides Link Officers with an opportunity to meet together with their colleagues from across the country; to share their local experiences relating to evidence-informed practice; and also to hear about recent developments – David Williams from Essex spoke about their experiences of
the Individual Budgets Pilot and Peter Thistlethwaite spoke about the evidence for integrated working. The Link Officer Annual Meeting also provided an opportunity for Link Officers to share their insights into some of the evidence that is being used in their local practice. There was a wide range of examples of evidence being used and also examples of evidence being collected via research and local audits. These included:

• people being supported to share their experiences of using an Individual Budget;
• a good practice database to capture when people are using evidence in their practice;
• an evaluation of telecare;
• customer surveys and how the findings are used to improve practice;
• people using learning disability services exploring what health services are available to them;
• reflecting on an authority’s journey towards self-directed support;
• work done to locate and recognise hidden carers; and
• a Partnership for Older People Project that has developed specialist expertise in the provision of services for older people with mental health problems from black and minority ethnic
  groups.

Some of these examples will be used as the basis for a postcard series of evidence examples that research in practice for adults will be developing over the next year. So keep your eyes peeled if there is something of interest to you.

If you have your own examples of where you are using evidence in your practice that you would like to share or include in the series then please do get in touch with us at info@ripfa.org.uk.
what’s new?

Publications

Key Issues: January saw the launch of a new publication series from research in practice for adults. This series called key issues is deisgned to provide ready access to relevant policy, available
evidence and emerging pratice on topics of current practice. The first publication in the series is outcome based commissioning and contracting and the second is support brokerage. They will
both be available in hard copy from your Link Officer shortly and will also be uploaded onto the website.

OutLines: These publications seek to answer a key question in adult social care and this month sees the arrival of the eighth, ninth and tenth publication in this series. OutLine 8 How should services meet the needs of people with Down Syndrome who develop dementia?, OutLine 9 How can mental health services promote recovery from severe mental illness? and OutLine 10 What models of care are effective for people living with long-term health conditions? will all be distributed via your Link
Officer in the coming weeks. The full text will also be available to view on our website shortly.

Change Projects

The development stage of our first change project Safety Matters: developing practice in safeguarding adults, is now complete. The development group have met together on five occasions over the past six months to discuss and debate key issues surrounding safeguarding adults. They have explored the available evidence, contributed their own skills and experience and worked to pool their ideas, devise new practical tools and make suggestions for safeguarding work. We were very
lucky to have recruited such an enthusiastic, committed and knowledgeable group of people to participate in the development work.

The next stage is for the two facilitators, Bridget Penhale from the University of Sheffield and George Julian from research in practice for adults, to pull together all of the information, tools and knowledge that has emerged from the development process and translate it into a Pilot Handbook.

The Pilot Handbook will be launched at our Directors Policy Forum in June and piloting will commence in September. If you are interested in being involved in the piloting process or would like more information please contact George by email on george@ripfa.org.uk or on 01803 860098.

Please also contact George if you would like to be added to the distribution list for quarterly updates about the project.

The topic for the second change project has now been decided. It has a working title of SDS360 and the focus is on meeting the need for provision of information for self-directed support. We are going to hold the Expert Knowledge Exchange at the end of May and this will bring together key players from the fields of academia, practice and research to capture the latest thinking and knowledge surrounding self-directed support and to identify the key issues to be addressed within the project.

Following the Expert Knowledge Exchange, expressions of interest for participation will be sought from Partner agencies in early June.

One-to-one support

Do you need support with the following?

• Designing a research proposal or project
• Research methodologies – developing questionnaires, interview questions, focus groups –
  which to use when and how to use them
• Evidence or information gathering for a new service, project or strategy
• Facilitating a learning event on evidence-informed practice

These are the kinds of things that we see the one-to-one support programme being used for. 20 hours one-to-one support is available per partner per year. Support runs from April to April. Next year there will be some changes to the way the programme is organised.

To avoid all proposals coming in at once, we will have 3 submission dates. The research in practice for adults team will discuss proposals following each submission date. You can still send proposals in at any point but our discussions will be focused at these times; the submission dates are:

30th April 2008
31st July 2008
31st November 2008

If you have any queries relating to one-to-one support, please contact claire@ripfa.org.uk.

Events

We have had a number of events over the past two months. There have been two workshops looking at what works in reablement; and one focusing on support for long term conditions (to be repeated in April see below). We held a conference on occupational therapy in health and social care and one evidence guide workshop. All the presentations from these learning events are available to view on our website, click here for more information http://www.ripfa.org.uk/learningevents/index.asp?catID=8.

‘Think Family: Getting the whole picture’ was the focus of our annual Councillors and Trustees Seminar, held jointly with research in practice last month. Councillors from our Partner agencies enjoyed a packed programme of speakers and round table discussion with colleagues from Children’s services. We were also delighted to be able to share with them Trying Childhoods, an exhibition of work produced by children whose parents were misused drugs or alcohol. The presentations from the seminar are available to view here http://www.ripfa.org.uk/annualevents/cts.asp?catID=9&subcat=1 .

Forthcoming Learning Events include the following;

Domiciliary Care – regional workshop

These workshops are being delivered for research in practice for adults by independent consultant Gill Herbert. They provide an opportunity to learn about the evidence base and recent policy
developments in domiciliary care, as well as gain from the experiences and ideas of other attendees.
Warrington, March 13 2008
Sheffield, April 17 2008

Commissioning and Contracting for Outcomes

This event will explore effective strategies for transforming commissioning and contracting to deliver outcomes-focused care. It will provide the opportunity to learn about the evidence base for outcomes-based commissioning and contracting, and hear about the experiences of those who have already implemented outcome based contracts.

Manchester, April 10 2008
Dartington, May 20 2008
Support for Long Term Conditions

At these events, facilitator Jeanette Leech will introduce and define the issues in working with those living with long-term conditions. Research and patient perspectives will be explored, and examples of effective practice will be highlighted. Joint working across health and social care in the field of long
term conditions will be discussed.

Taunton, April 23 2008 – additional date due to popular demand
Taunton, April 24 2008

We encourage you to book your places early so please contact your Link Officer to reserve a space for any of our upcoming events. There is always the possibility of last minute availability, so please contact barbara@ripfa.org.uk to check if there are places available.

Research and Policy Updates

Research and Policy Updates (RPUs) are published monthly and are available on the website on the third Monday of the month. They are also sent to our partner agencies for Link Officers to distribute far and wide. The idea is to summarise recent research and policy documents, signposting readers towards key papers, guidance and documents. These are varied and articles are highlighted in the abstract, so that people can assess what is of interest to them.

There have been several reports from the Department of Health focusing on the new performance framework which were reviewed. These were Guidance on Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, an aspiration to World Class Commissioning, and a summary document, Delivering health and wellbeing in partnership: the crucial role of the new local partnership framework. There has also been a focus on long term conditions with the following two publications being reviewed Raising the Profile of Long Term Conditions Care: A Compendium of Information and Generic choice for long term conditions, together with a journal article Patient and carer perceptions of case management for long term conditions. There were also a number of other research reports and articles highlighted. These cover a wide range of topics including a focus on safeguarding adults, Supporting People, mental health and offenders, carers, quality of life for people with autism spectrum disorder, outcomes of rehousing older people and service users’ views of self-help strategies and research in the UK.

For more information, visit the research and policy updates on our website.