SSRG Newsletter - November 2002: Feedback from the SSRG London Forum

Friday 27 September 2002

SCIE, the Social Care Institute for Excellence was the excellent venue for the re-launch of the SSRG London now partnered with the London Forum for Quality Assurnace4 in Social Services. Eighteen people attended, an encouraging sign that there is interest in continuing a London SSRG group. We have decided to work in partnership with the London Forum hopefully to the benefit of both groups.

There was plenty of discussion and debate following two presentations. The first was by Amanda Edwards from SCIE, followed by Dugald Millar, Assistant Director of Slough SSD.

SCIE was set up after the need for an independent institute for social care was identified as a key proposal in the Government's Strategy of Social Care. SCIE aims to improve the quality of social care through promoting better knowledge of research, best practice and user involvement. NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence has a similar role for health services. SCIE and NICE are working closely with each other and learning from each other.

SCIE is giving guidance on social care standards, training and on the different kinds of knowledge by which social care standards can be judged - promoting use of a wider range of information that the PAF indicators on which to judge the standards of care services.

Amanda Edwards referred to the different practice of professionals that develops through experience and training. Often people providing services are unaware of research findings that could influence their practice - the challenge is how to disseminate and promote these more effectively.

SCIE as an organisation is user focused with user participation built into all aspects of its work and aims to work in partnership with a wide range of other organisations and practitioners.

Dugald Millar described research in Hillingdon that was funded as a Demonstrator Project by the Department of Health to the tune of £40,000. Professionals often assume they know what people want. Sometimes these assumptions may be right: sometimes wrong. Hillingdon's project asked people what kind of information they wanted on social and health care - whether they are currently in contact with local services or not. Over a thousand people contributed to the survey that in some ways confirmed what he had assumed, but in other ways threw up interesting results.

A small number of in depth interviews were also carried out. The results of these were a very valuable supplement to the quantitative work, highlighting the different times people needed information - for example at times of crisis, post crisis, and long term, with different demands depending on the situation.

There is an emotional dimension to receiving information that colours and individuals response to it. At times of crisis it is difficult to take in information particularly if it is not directly.

Most people surveyed preferred face to face communication for important personal information to be given. Some people preferred to give simple information by telephone for speed. Interest in using the web depended on the age of the person being surveyed with younger people being more willing to use it more for general information than personal information.

SSRG London Forum

We discussed a wide range of issues that might be discussed over the next year. Forum people volunteered to help organise the next meeting and set a schedule for the following three meetings.
We want to make the meetings relevant to people who work in the voluntary sector, in best value, quality and performance roles, and for people who either do research, or need to use research skills in the work they do.

The meetings will focus on practical issues. We agreed that we are often called upon to get information together to quick deadlines, and that we may well not meet rigorous standards in research methods always.

Despite this, research techniques can be used to advantage in many areas of work and we want to foster the use of research in our organisations.

We discussed how to encourage social work research within our organisations, when resources are limited, and demands seem to be ever increasing.

It was agreed that a London network could assist us to share the work we are each doing, and identify areas of common interest. Social work training at an advanced level does now include and element of research methods, but London staff shortages mean there are fewer staff qualified at this level, and staff turnover is so rapid continuity is lost.

Authorities are increasingly commissioning rather than providing services directly. There needs to be a strong core team with the capacity to research and evaluate the service that they have commissioned from external providers.

Date of next meeting

The next meeting would be arranged for early February 2002, probably at SCIE. Subject(s) to be discussed will be confirmed closer to the time.

Steering Group

Joyce Phillips
tel: 0207 361 2554 email: joyce.phillips@rbkc.gov.uk
Patricial Walker
tel: 0208 489 6940 email: patricia.walker@haringey.gov.uk
Dugald Millar
email: dugald.millar@slough.gov.uk

Other members:
Anthea Wilkinson, Stella Law, and Gerda Looosemore-Reppen