Rhiannon Wright
Evidence Community
Lilla Vér
Place-Based Care Community
Mathew Morgan
Responsible Individuals Community
We believe creating spaces to connect and develop relationships will lead to lasting, positive change.
Our communities bring together social care practitioners, innovators and people with lived experience to create the energy and momentum for change.
They’re spaces for people to share their knowledge and ideas and to learn from others, creating relationships across different sectors and across Wales.
The communities meet both online and in person, while members can also connect through an online platform.
Here, the Insight Collective brings you some of the highlights of what’s been happening in our communities over the past two months.
Our Evidence Community came together in July for a ‘Research Conversations’ workshop facilitated by Dr Ceryl Davies and Dr Louise Prendergast from Bangor University.
Ceryl and Louise shared their findings from research that explored the enablers and barriers to engaging with care leavers across Wales.
In August, the community held another ‘Research Conversations’ workshop on the theme of co-production. This session was led by Dr Nina Maxwell and Dr Martin Elliott from Cardiff University.
The community also held its quarterly core group meeting. The Evidence Community core group is open to anyone who wants to have more of a say in the direction the community takes. If you’d like to become a member of this group, please contact Community Manager Rhiannon Wright on rhiannon.wright@socialcare.wales.
Lots of new blogs and news articles have been published on the community’s online platform, on themes including fabricated or induced illness (FII), working with Romani and Traveller communities, and collaborative social care research with older people.
There was also an interesting discussion on the platform about some of the challenges that emerge when working as a social worker in a mainly health-focused setting.
In July, the Bevan Commission joined the Place-Based Care Community to talk about the future of health and care in Wales based on their recent publication on the topic.
Members raised important points about working collaboratively, sharing information often and in different ways, and the day-to-day challenges of their settings.
We hope to bring these topics into future conversations in the community.
In August, members expressed how challenging it can be to try to show impact when some preventative and place-based work doesn’t neatly translate into numbers.
In response, the community welcomed Nick Andrews from Developing Evidence-Enriched Practice (DEEP), who shared information about Most Significant Change as a potential evaluation method.
Nick's session led to a great discussion, and members had the chance to experience being storytellers and story gatherers.
The Responsible Individuals Community came together in small ‘Coffee and connect’ sessions to get to know other Responsible Individuals in their own service type.
Members met in Newport and heard from Dr Tegan Brierley-Sollis about embedding trauma-informed approaches in services, and how to protect staff from vicarious trauma. They had time to think about how to apply the information to their own services.
In an innovative pilot, the community worked with Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) and DEEP to bring Responsible Individuals and inspectors together online to explore different approaches to measuring and communicating the outcomes of people using social care services.
Participants looked at four very different approaches to outcome measurement and were given space to discuss their thoughts and develop a shared understanding.
The community’s August meet-up marked a year since the community launched. Members reflected on the achievements and benefits of the community, before breaking off into smaller groups to share good practice around different approaches to quality of care reviews.
The community worked with CIW to create a blog which explains what happens to Annual Returns once they're submitted by Responsible Individuals.
Evidence Community
Place-Based Care Community
Responsible Individuals Community