Objective 2: Develop a skilled research workforce of national and international standing that can undertake high quality research. Objective 3: Through the work of the Wales School for Social Care Research (DEEP program -Developing Evidence Enriched Practice) and the ExChange model, support connections and bridges between research institutions and policy and practice settings to support facilitating research- minded social care organisational cultures. Objective 4: Support the development of tools and processes for social care practitioners to engage with evaluation and research in their setting. Objective 5: Support the development of incentives to engage in research drawing on examples in clinical health research such as time awards for NHS clinicians. Objective 6: Actively support and showcase the value of social care research and reflect this in the funding for social care research. Objective 7: Review ethics and permissions processes for social care researchers. Focus area 5 Communicating and using – research Why is this issue important? A major challenge for social care is ensuring practitioners and policy makers have access to the results of research evidence, so that policy and practice, as well as service organisation and delivery, take into account the best available research evidence. For evidence dissemination to be effective, a culture of research mindedness within social care organisational environments is also required, so that staff are both able and motivated to engage with research and make use of it. There is also a need to overcome the perception that individuals operate either as researchers or practitioners, but not both. The view of practitioners as passive recipients of research findings also needs to be overcome. Another challenge is the question of how to enable access to research evidence in an understandable format that enables organisational leaders and practitioners to inform practice. For example, the way that research is communicated can create barriers to its adoption by those without research backgrounds. Individuals working
Objective 2: Develop a skilled research workforce of national and international standing that can undertake high quality research. Objective 3: Through the work of the Wales School for Social Care Research (DEEP program -Developing Evidence Enriched Practice) and the ExChange model, support connections and bridges between research institutions and policy and practice settings to support facilitating research- minded social care organisational cultures. Objective 4: Support the development of tools and processes for social care practitioners to engage with evaluation and research in their setting. Objective 5: Support the development of incentives to engage in research drawing on examples in clinical health research such as time awards for NHS clinicians. Objective 6: Actively support and showcase the value of social care research and reflect this in the funding for social care research. Objective 7: Review ethics and permissions processes for social care researchers. Focus area 5 – Communicating and using research Why is this issue important? A major challenge for social care is ensuring practitioners and policy makers have access to the results of research evidence, so that policy and practice, as well as service organisation and delivery, take into account the best available research evidence. For evidence dissemination to be effective, a culture of research mindedness within social care organisational environments is also required, so that staff are both able and motivated to engage with research and make use of it. There is also a need to overcome the perception that individuals operate either as researchers or practitioners, but not both. The view of practitioners as passive recipients of research findings also needs to be overcome. Another challenge is the question of how to enable access to research evidence in an understandable format that enables organisational leaders and practitioners to inform practice. For example, the way that research is communicated can create barriers to its adoption by those without research backgrounds. Individuals working
Final-Draft-Research-Strategy-v2.docx