Let’s use what’s already out there

Guest post from: Professor Jonathan Scourfield, Cardiff School of Social Sciences

My general pitch in writing this blog is to argue that social care researchers could make much more use out of existing data sources. Typically when our MA Social Work students are thinking about possible small-scale empirical projects they can carry out, they assume they need to collect their own data. Now the problem with collecting your own data is that it is very time-consuming and a busy Masters student (or indeed a busy practitioner researcher or academic researcher) might just find their data coverage ends up being disappointing. What a lot of people don't realise is that there are some large-scale data out there already collected that can be used for further research. 

The UK Data Archive has lots of fabulous data sets which are cruelly under-used. In this paper  we looked at the major UK panel and cohort studies conducted over many years to see which included data on social work services. The questions about social work contact were typically very limited, but there were seven studies with some potential for social work research. In a new project  funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which you can find here , we'll be seeing what we can do with four of these studies. 

A recently completed example, using a cross-sectional survey, is that Tom Slater used a psychiatric morbidity study for his PhD on social workers' role in preventing suicide , available here 

  . This data set is freely available to anyone registered with a UK university. No special permissions are needed and all data are already anonymised. Although many of the data set in the UK Data Archive require statistical analysis, there are also qualitative data sets available for secondary analysis. These include such classic social work studies as Dingwall et al's well known ethnographic research from the late 1970s-early 1980s 'The Protection of Children' and Townsend's research on the family lives of older people.

Routine social care data are the other major source for secondary research. Social care providers of course keep data on service users and these data can be used for research purposes, up to a point. I say up to a point because of course it is not appropriate for just anyone to have access to someone's personal records. But it is possible to produce anonymised versions of quantitative data with all identifying details removed. Even routine data which are more qualitative, and therefore more difficult to anonymise, can be used for research purposes in some circumstances. Nowadays there are also potential opportunities to link routine social care data with anonymised health records, for example via the SAIL databank at Swansea here . A couple of new research projects in Welsh universities are about to do just that, with the support of NISCHR, and I look forward to seeing the results.

Watch Professor Scourfield talk about his research:

The Inaugural Wales Social Care Curry or Clwb Cyri Gofal Cymdeithasol

19.00 Thursday  5^th September 2013 was a historic day in the field of social care within Wales as it saw the inaugural meeting of the Wales Social Care Curry Club.  You can find the history background and reasoning of the social care curry club here:  http://bit.ly/17DH7Hg but suffice to say the inaugural Wales event was hosted by Peter and Anne Marie who had contacted the organisers of the Social Care Curry initiative and offered to help organise one in the Welsh capital. The rest is now history and I am sure will prove to be historical to boot. Wales joined  a mix of such eat-ups that took place throughout the UK in nine different locations on the same date in: Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester and Southampton. You can learn more about curry club here.

The involvement of @ASCCCymru came from a random tweet received from Professor Jonathon Scourfield , which was a little ironic as eventually he could not attend but @ASCCCymru is more than thankful to him for making us aware of this great initiative. Like many an innovative idea this one is just SO simple.  Just get anybody who is interested in social care to get together in a room and share a curry #DOH.  Those who might want to come along to make a pitch or try to sell something were discouraged as that is not what the night was all about.  It was just about getting to know each other and the sharing of knowledge and experiences between people who are genuinely interested in social care and who also enjoy a curry. The turn out to the first event was, shall we say, select with only eight attendees, but the quality of those attendees was top class and as the night progressed it very much turned in to a highly enjoyable and informative evening.

I’m sure readers can appreciate that the prospect of walking in to a restaurant to meet and spend the evening with potentially a crowd of strangers can be a somewhat daunting experience. This was a little alleviated for me as I had at least met the indefatigable Anne Marie Cunningham on one previous occasion and had communicated with her on Twitter a number of times, so at least I already knew one of the participants.  Anne Marie did a fantastic job of welcoming people on arrival and putting people at their ease. What was a very pleasant surprise however was that on arrival, with one exception, I had either met briefly or had knowledge as to who they were  with everyone at the table.  Wales has a tendency towards this and South Wales in particular.  We are only a small country of three million and not everyone is interested in social care. Even if you want to remain anonymous in Wales, unless you never come out of the house or never engage in social media, it is difficult.  Having at least some knowledge or contact with most of the people at the table this is where the Social Care curry really came into its own, as it provided an opportunity to build on those previous professional meetings and take them up to a new level where we could actively consider closer collaboration and contact.  

The social care curry provided the opportunity for people from different areas of social care such as policy, practitioner, service user and indeed academic to come together in an environment where no specific outcome is expected, other than to eat a curry and have a chat.  What could be more simple, what could be more basic, but I think as the evening showed, what could be more enlightening and what could be more enjoyable?   

I am already looking forward to me next social care curry #NomNomNom :-)