Mental health social work research events

I’m involved in several events over the next few months which provide opportunities for service users, carers, practitioners, students and researchers to engage with research relevant to mental health social work. Rather than posting multiple blogs, I thought I’d provide some quick links in one place.

Making Research Count (throughout 2015 and 2016, Yorkshire and Humber region)

Making Research Count at York provides regional events which engage practitioners in research findings. The programme of events is developed around the needs of subscribing agencies, but it is diverse and should be of interest to all social workers. The full list of events can be found on the Making Research Count (York) webpages. All are worth attending, but I would like to highlight two:

8th March 2016: Learning from Baby P – Sharon Shoesmith will present the findings of her PhD.

21st April 2016: Mental health social work with children, young people and adults – I will lead an interactive day discussing the latest mental health social work research findings across the life-course.

ESRC seminar series: Reimagining professionalism in mental health – towards co-production (starts 5th January 2016, Leeds)

With colleagues from University of Leeds, University of Huddersfield, Bowling Green State University and Volition we are leading a series of ESRC-funded seminars over two years focusing on co-production in mental health services.

The seminar series will bring people together from different stakeholder groups in order to develop ideas about new ways of working in mental health which are based on the principle of co-production. This will involve considering current practices, policies, approaches in different organisations, as well as education and training in mental health. Crucially, mental health service users and carers will fully participate in this process. Further information about the seminar series can be found on our Departmental website.

The first seminar will be held at the University of Leeds on 5th January 2016 with a focus on ‘democratic professionalism and mental health’. Speakers will include Annie Dransfield (Carer and campaigner for Carers Rights), Albert Dzur (Professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University) and Michael Guthrie (Director of Policy and Standards, Health and Care Professions Council). The seminar is free to attend and some travel bursaries are available, but online bookings must be made in advance via the University of Leeds events office. You can apply for a travel bursary by downloading and submitting this application form. The deadline for the travel bursary is 30th November 2015 and the deadline to book a place at the seminar is 10th December 2015.

For any questions on the seminar series, please email esrc-co@leeds.ac.uk.

Mersey Care Social Care Conference (6th November 2015, Liverpool)

Mersey Care NHS Trust organise an extraordinary annual mental health social care conference. This year they have another full line up of speakers for the conference on 6th November 2015. The conference theme is ‘Service users’ voice, change, rights and advocacy: what is the reality?’. I’ll be speaking about the Connecting People Intervention as a model of co-production wherein practitioners and service users co-produce the intervention together.

The conference is free to attend and a booking form can be found here. Judging by the Masked AMHPs review of last year’s conference, this promises to be an exciting event!

Quantitative research for social work (14th December 2015, Manchester)

Social work research predominantly uses qualitative methods. However, we have much to learn from quantitative research in social work and to facilitate this the ‘Social Work Over Time’ project on cohort and panel studies (led by Cardiff University) is hosting a seminar on 14th December 2015 in Manchester. I’ll be speaking on the model of social intervention development and evaluation we used to inform the Connecting People studies, which utilised multiple research methods. My colleague Nina Biehal and others including Martin Knapp, Elaine Sharland, Jonathan Scourfield and Janice McGhee will speak on topics as diverse as longitudinal studies, panel studies, randomised controlled trials and economic evaluation.

A flyer for the event can be found here and bookings can be made online at EventBrite.