This is for the mods and rockers among you who spent the last week at the seaside and missed the twitter announcements….

Great to see this focus on public involvement in social care.

‘Get all sides of the story’: public involvement and participation in adult social care research

The NIHR School for Social Care Research (SSCR) and INVOLVE are launching a series of webinars starting on 13 September 2013.

Learn about:

• different research methods and approaches to help you address the specific and unique concerns of adult social care research with a range of different groups
• why public involvement in research is important, the difference it can make to your research and hear about examples of how people are getting involved.

Sign up and join the webinars which draw on SSCR’s Methods Reviews, INVOLVE’s experience and the expertise of researchers actively involving members of the public in their research.  The series will be relevant to researchers and practitioners (among others) who are new to social care research and public involvement in research as well as to experienced researchers looking for new ideas and approaches. It will also be of interest to those who want to find out more about research.

Webinar 1: Public Involvement in social care research: An Overview

Friday 13^th September 14.00 – 15.00 (register by Friday 6^th September 2013 – places are limited)

This first webinar provides an overview of public involvement in research:

• ‘Context’: Dr Michael Clark (Research Programme Manager, SSCR) introduces the webinar series, setting out the context and SSCR’s methods reviews.
• ‘The Need’: Simon Denegri (Chair of INVOLVE, NIHR National Director for Public Participation and Engagement in Research) provides an introduction to the difference between public involvement in research and engagement and how they overlap.  He will outline why public involvement is important and how it makes a difference.
• ‘Good practice’: Tina Coldham (service user; member of INVOLVE) offers advice and tips on things to consider when involving members of the public in research. Tina will highlight practical examples and signpost to relevant resources and information.

The webinars will run over the next 6 months. Future seminars will be topic based and aim to cover:

• Research with black and minority ethnic people using social care services
• Research with d/Deaf people
• Research about social care services for visually impaired people
• End of life care research methods
• Interviewing people with dementia
• User controlled research