JRF/ASCC ‘Simple but not simplistic – developing evidence enriched practice’

project

JRF ‘A Better Life’ programmeFour strands of work:• Care homes (My Home Life) – a three

year ‘voice, choice and control’ project including leadership programme for managers

• Housing with care – three main projects with a view to supporting development of seamless care (quality of life, affordability, relationships)

• Alternative approaches – e.g. housing co-ops, Shared Lives, Homeshare, Debenham Project

• Vision and mission – what makes a better life not just better services – seven key challenges

http://www.jrf.org.uk/topic/betterlife

http://betterlife.jrf.org.uk/poem.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdadD6eSFQ4&feature=youtu.be

ASCC ‘Developing Evidence Enriched Practice (DEEP)’ project

• Working with a number of national and local agencies to explore the effective use of evidence in practice

National agencies Local agenciesSocial Services Improvement Agency Gwalia

Care Council for Wales Neath & Port Talbot

Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales

Bridgend County Borough Council

Older People’s Commissioner Carmarthenshire County Council

Age Cymru (My Home Life Cymru programme)

Monmouthshire County Council

JRF/ASCC ‘Simple but not Simplistic’ project -what we want to achieve

• An action learning programme of service and workforce development in each site using the DEEP principles – focusing on topics that matter to agencies and practitioners and using ‘A Better Life’ and other evidence (see later)

• Find out how practitioners engage with evidence and use it to develop their thinking and practice

• Find out how the organisations they work for can support or undermine this

Some key principles behind the DEEP approach

Working towards a better life for all – creating an ‘enriched environment of care and support’ (Nolan, 2006)

‘We should be not be talking about quality of life, but rather quality of lives’ (Post, 2001)

Drawing on Appreciative Inquiry – building on good practice, not picking holes

• ‘Appreciative Inquiry is the co-operative search for the best in people, their organisations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system “life” when it is most effective and capable’ (Cooperrider et al. 2007)

Valuing stories – drawing on Experience Based Co-Design (EBCD)

• ‘Life fills us with stories. Stories fill us with life’ (Contact the Elderly volunteer leaflet)

• ‘The most perfectly designed treatment pathway in the world can still be a disaster from an experience point of view’ (Bate & Robert, 2007 p22)

Bringing together four types of evidence to make changes for the better

There are at least four very important sources of evidence:• Research • Practitioner wisdom• Organisational

knowledge• Lived experience and

‘voice’ of local older people and carers

Giving power to the frontline

• ‘If people don't think they have the power to solve their problems, they won't even think about how to solve them’. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

It’s not all about big changes• ‘Often it is the simple things

that bring the most pleasure (and the lack of them can bring a sense of sadness and loss) and services do not always seem to be very good at delivering ‘the ordinary’’. (Blood, 2013 p13)

• We’d like to ‘think outside the box’ – new ways of working as well as how existing service models can be improved

Three things need to be right

• Frontline staff engagement with evidence (e.g. understanding about loneliness, human rights approach to risk)

• Embedded systems (e.g. forms and processes)

• Organisational culture (e.g. valuing, permissive and empowering)

Timetable – phase one

• January 31st – launch event in Cardiff• March – a focus group with service users and

carers in each of the sites• Early April – an all day learning event in each

of the sites• Mid April to early May– phone interviews

with practitioners in each of the sites• Late May – interim report

Timetable - phase two

• Early June to early November – six half day action learning events in each site and two rounds of telephone interviews with practitioners – July and October

• Early December – an all day sharing experiences event in Cardiff for reps from each of the sites and a focus group with service users and carers in each of the sites

• January to April – evaluation, project outputs and national dissemination event(s)