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 October 2021

ARC NWC Newsletter October 2021

A message from ARC NWC Director, Professor Mark Gabbay

Thank you for taking the time to read our latest Newsletter. Firstly, I hope you and your friends and family are keeping well during these unprecedented times.  

Thank you to all those who attended last month’s ARCFEST. We had changed the format based on feedback and the shorter sessions and new way of presenting our work were well received. Videos from the event and the individual sessions are available on the ARC NWC YouTube channel.

I do hope you can share these with colleagues for those who could not attend. The next ARCFEST will be virtual in December and we are anticipating a hybrid model for the first ARCFEST of 2022 in March. 

Last month we also held our staff away day which outlined our own internal plans of delivering against our research bid promises. Thank you to all of the public advisers and member representatives who attended and fed in to our plans. We have summarised the discussions and will be sharing these imminently while using them to underpin our delivery against bid targets over the next 3 years.

Delighted to see this month’s Newsletter feature our member Active Lancashire benefit from the skills and talent within our teams and themes as they evaluated the United Together initiative.  

I would also like to extend a warm welcome to our new staff at the ARC NWC and can I ask our members in particular to share the internship opportunities featured in this edition. They really are a great way to help build research capacity and encourage staff to develop their research interests further.

Thank you for your continued support


Professor Mark Gabbay
Director, ARC NWC 
Internship opportunities for member staff at ARC NWC

We are pleased to invite applications for ARC NWC Research Internships. These internships are designed to support individuals within our member organisations to undertake a small research project under the supervision of experienced researchers from one of the ARC universities.

Interns must submit their own research idea for consideration, but it must align with their organisation’s priorities, focus on addressing health inequalities, involve patients and the public in coproduction of the research, and fit within one of the ARC NWC Themes. Information about our research themes and cross-cutting themes is available here: https://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/

The internships are open to individuals employed within our Member organisations who have an interest in research and are looking to begin the next stage of their research career. Individuals with research skills at all levels will be considered. A list of our current Members can be found here: https://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/about/members/

Interns will be expected to dedicate up to one day a week to their research project for a period of up to one year. Salary back-fill will be provided to assist with time release. During this time, interns will receive supervisory support and formal training sessions covering the steps required to undertake research. Interns will also have the benefit of working alongside other interns throughout the programme. The employing organisation of the intern will be offered a payment of £6000 as salary backfill to release their member of staff from their duties to complete the internship. Applicants for the internship programme do not require any formal research training. However, they will require a strong interest in research, commitment to the programme (including presentation of their work at the end of the year), full managerial support, and ability to attend the supervisory meetings and training sessions.

The internships will commence in February 2022. Interviews will be held in late in December 2021 and early January 2022. For informal enquiries or application form, please contact George Georgiou or Colette Miller at arcnwc@uclan.ac.uk Deadline for applications is 5pm Monday 6th December 2021.

         
 

3rd Annual Liverpool Dementia and Ageing Research Conference


November 3rd 2021

Conference with a mix of speakers, including health and social care professionals, academics, third sector organisations, and carers, sharing and discussing their work into dementia and ageing.

Please sign up to register.

 

Paper by Peter Lloyd, ARC NWC Public Adviser – Post Covid-19 Futures: Looking Back to Look Forward for People and Places

Our aim in this 9th paper in our series on Covid-19, is to try to look forward beyond the pandemic, and to see what things may look like on the other side of it.

To look forward means we also have to look back, since the pandemic represents an extreme event throwing its impact into a process of transformation that was under way before it happened. 

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ARC NWC teams up with Active Lancashire  
 
ARC NWC member Active Lancashire, in collaboration with researchers from the ARC’s Equitable Place-based Health and Care (EPHC) theme and the IMPlementation and Capacity Building Team (IMPaCT) have designed and conducted a rapid process evaluation of their United Together project.

United Together is a unique initiative that provides a peer mentored support package, focused on strategies that mitigate the risk of re-offending post release from prison. Stakeholders involved in the project include Burnley FC in the Community, Accrington Stanley Community Trust, Blackburn Rovers Football Club Community Trust, Preston North End Community Trust, Blackpool FC Community Trust, Fleetwood Town Community Trust, Morecambe FC Community Sports and Cumbria and Lancashire Community Rehabilitation Company to identify eligible participants for the project prior to release from prison.

The project mentors begin by making an assessment of participant needs, steering them toward project partners from the More Positive Together project who can provide them with a vital support network as they begin to re-establish their place in their communities. A focus on sport and physical activity at the heart of the programme due to its vital role in the development of team building skills, confidence raising and the fostering of positive new relationships which can help bring about lasting behaviour change.

On release from prison, many individuals face a range of barriers to reintegrating back into the community, such as stigma, social isolation, substance misuse, and lack of access to housing and employment. The project intends to provide more holistic support to meet the complex needs of prison leavers, address barriers, and enable them to re-establish their place in the community.

Running since 2019, United Together has received positive feedback from prison leavers participating and has shown success in improving wellbeing, levels of physical activity and reducing re-offending rates.

Paula Wheeler, EPHC theme Manager, said: “Active Lancashire were keen in knowing more about what had influenced the project’s success and capture the value of the partnership approach they had used. Working with ARC NWC they have been able to develop additional insight and evidence of what elements of the project have worked well and intend to use the data to inform further funding proposals to further develop this model of delivery.”

Between July and September 2021, ARC NWC engaged with key stakeholders involved in managing and delivering the initiative to find out more about their actions, experiences and what they thought had influenced the project’s success.

‘’The ARC NWC team is very approachable with a can-do attitude and they took the time to understand the United Together project and our work in general here at Active Lancashire. They showed a real interest and offered some great ideas. This evidence will help us refine the project and make precise decisions for the future.” – Dr. Illiana Makri, Research and Insight Manager, Active Lancashire

A report is currently being finalised which will be uploaded onto ARC NWC website and shared with other members in the ARC NWC collaboration.

Professor Mark Gabbay, Director of ARC NWC, said: “This is a great example of a member tapping into the skills and depth of talent we have within our theme teams. I hope our work contributes towards helping this initiative continue to go from strength to strength.”

Picture credit: Burnley FC in the Community

Jane Moodie, Project Lead and Operations Manager at Active Lancashire, was interviewed about her experience of working with ARC NWC on this project (below). 

       




           

 

National news from all ARCs

The October 2021 edition of the national ARC newsletter is now available to read. 

Features latest work from ARCs around the country including blogs, news and events. 
If you haven't subscribed yet (!) you can do so here

Well worth a read to find out about innovation across the UK. 

Podcasts 

The 2nd season of ARC NWC Senior Research Fellow Clarissa Giebel's  science podcast, The Ageing Scientist, has launched. The 1st season looked at different angles of COVID-19, and season 2 is all about Inequalities in ageing and dementia, featuring digital and geographical inequalities.

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6knC1x3RDpDNvlVqUD6Mm0 

Podbean:
https://theageingscientist.podbean.com/
 

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ARC helps Implementation Leads come together

A national meeting of Implementation Leads from Applied Research Collaborations and Academic Health Science Networks Implementation Leads took place last month. 

Discussions involved ways of sharing knowledge and skills around Implementation across the Infrastructure. As a result of these discussions, it was recognised that supporting collaboration to build capacity for effective implementation in health and social care would be best achieved by working together. Offering collaborative learning opportunities for people across and beyond the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) infrastructure may act as a catalyst to identify shared priorities, develop effective strategies, and to work together to build bridges across boundaries.
 
The event was hosted by the NIHR with ARC NWC being a member of the steering group.
 
The aim of the event was to enable effective implementation, evaluation, adoption, and scaling up of effective interventions in health and social care; and to promote the development of skills in understanding implementation in Health and Social Care. The learning event provided a space to discuss implementation and implementation research, and to explore and sign-post capacity building opportunities in this area.
 
Over 100 people were in the audience to witness presentations by leaders in the fields of Capacity Building and Implementation, and through the facilitated discussion groups where attendees shared examples of good practice, identifying areas for improvement and discussing strategies to “develop the ideal” – looking to the future and developing methods to facilitate collaboration moving forwards.
 
The results of the facilitated discussion sessions will be thematically analysed and shared with the NIHR, DHSC and all attendees.

ARC NWC Implementation Lead, Dame Caroline Watkins,  opened the event.  

Work in healthcare services that support people with young-onset dementia (YOD) and their families? Then perhaps you can help…

Thomas Faulklner is an Assistant Psychologist at our member Merseycare and is also a research intern with ARC NWC.

He says: “As part of my internship project, I am interested in the experiences of people working in health-care services who support people with young-onset dementia (YOD) and their families. This can include clinical staff, management, doctors, social workers and care-home staff, at any grade.

I am hoping to conduct some interviews of around 15/20 minutes on MS Teams that would involve me asking you about current experiences of working with YOD, whether you have any concerns or worries, and what your thoughts around the support that people with YOD receive from the service you work for.

I would be extremely grateful if you would be willing to offer your time to take part in my study. If you have any questions in the meantime, or would like to arrange an interview, please e-mail me  at Thomas.faulkner@merseycare.nhs.uk.”
New Staff

Welcome to new Research Fellow Dr Kathryn Berzins who has joined the ARC NWC IMPaCT team.

Alder Hey’s Professor Jo Blair,  Director of Research (acting), who has joined us as a member co-lead.

University of Liverpool’s Dr Paula Byrne, Senior Lecturer, who has become Public and Community Involvement, Engagement and Participation (PCIEP) Strategic Lead for ARC NWC. She replaces Dr Lucy Frith who has moved to Manchester University.    

Blogs and opinion
What did local government ever do for us?
 
Professor Ben Barr, leader of  of ARC NWC's Improving Population Health Theme,  joins colleagues on a blog which argues levelling up health will only succeed if we invest across the whole of local government.

https://pldr.org/2021/09/30/what-did-local-government-ever-do-for-us/
 
 
Work in healthcare services that support people with young-onset dementia (YOD) and their families? Then perhaps you can help…

Piotr Teodorowski (University of Liverpool), Saiqa Ahmed (ARC NWC) and Irum Durrani (ARC NWC) talked to Peter Beresford, Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia and co-chair of the disabled people’s organisation, Shaping Our Lives, about how COVID-19 influenced co-production in healthcare services and research.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2021/09/16/peter-beresford-on-what-co-production-means-in-the-covid-era/
 
Work of Health Equity Maintenance Strategy public adviser group –

View of ARC NWC Public Adviser Tim Wilson

Equity a moral issue? It's about social justice, human rights, fairness, having the prerequisites of health for all. Inequities are the causes of the causes they cause inequalities in health.

According to the Kings Fund 1981 the social political economic and broad environmental (SEPE) determinants of health are the causation of 80 -90% of health or ill health – health services only account for 10 % of health – this should have profound resource allocation and research implications Will ARC research adopt an upstream public health approach, promote health and a quality of life? Will it adopt a social model of health, stop individualising and medicalising political social and equity issues?

Embed equity in all stages of research – from who’s perspective, certainly people affected by inequities and these people should be paramount in selecting priorities and involved in all stages – scoping, data collection, analysis, dissemination, implementation and impact evaluation. Will it leave a legacy of community active researchers, advocates for SEPE and equity change?

The views and opinions expressed in these blogs are solely those of the authors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of ARC NWC or its members. 
Events and opportunities
                                   Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum November 2021 Tickets, Wed 17  Nov 2021 at 13:00 | Eventbrite

Wed, 17 November 2021

13:00 – 14:00 GMT

In the virtual November Forum, Dr Stephanie Harrison from the University of Liverpool will be sharing and discussing her research into using ‘big data’ to improve the lives of older people living in care homes.

Dr Stephanie Harrison is a Tenure Track Research Fellow at the Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science and Institute of Life Course and Medical Sciences, University of Liverpool.

Her research interests include risk reduction and ways to improve health and quality of life for older people living with cardiovascular disease, dementia and/or living in care homes.

Dr Harrison will discuss the use of linked routinely collected data to increase the representativeness of people living in care homes in research studies. She will show some examples of research using ‘big data’ to optimise care pathways to improve health and social outcomes for residents.

After the talk, there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and discuss the topic. As always the event is free to everyone!

Online Event – Register Below

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/liverpool-dementia-ageing-research-forum-november-2021-tickets-175424949747


 
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