Category / REF Subjects

Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work launch new Safeguarding frameworks

Publishing

National Competence for Safeguarding Adults front coverNational Competence Framework for Safeguarding Adults

Learn to Care and Bournemouth University undertook this work in partnership to reflect the significant role that learning and developing plays in the delivery of high standards of social work and social care.

The framework will be invaluable to Adult Safeguarding Boards, practitioners and learning and development personnel, both in managing performance and delivering quality outcomes for people who are made vulnerable by their circumstances.

 

National Competence Framework for Safeguarding ChildrenNational Competence for Safeguarding Children front cover

This document complies with legislation, statutory guidance and best practice in relation to the safeguarding of children. Local Safeguarding Boards should take account of local needs, including an assessment of the effectiveness of multi-agency training to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people (Munro, 2011).

This document incorporates the recommendations from Professor Eileen Munro’s review into Child Protection in England and Wales.

The aim of this Framework, as with the other publication in this series – National Competence Framework for Safeguarding Adults – is to provide a baseline for standards of competence that individuals can expect to receive from those professionals and organisations, who are tasked with Safeguarding Children. It also provides employees and employers with a benchmark for the minimum standard of competence required of those who work to safeguard children across a range of sectors.

BU’s Richard Berger wins an AHRC grant!

Awarded & submitted bids

Congratulations to Dr Richard Berger, Associate Professor and Head of Postgraduate Research in the Media School, who has won an AHRC grant to research how the videogame L.A. Noire (which was released for Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 in May 2011) can be used to teach the English Literature curriculum. This is a collaborative grant led by Dr Julian McDougall at the University of Wolverhampton. Richard and Julian have collaborated previously on a number of journal papers, and are co-editors of the Media Education Research Journal.

About the AHRC award: The diegesis is set in 1947, and the game appropriates conventions from American film noir texts of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as later texts such as Alphaville (Godard, 1965) and L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997). The novels of Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy also contribute to this sphere of influence. Unlike these novels and films, this videogame is an author / auteur-less digital text which is pre-designed but ‘written’, in narrative terms, only when read (played). However, its highly literary and filmic nature would seem to be useful for teaching / learning in the English Literature curriculum.

As a research subject, L.A. Noire offers an opportunity to revisit ideas of adaptation and appropriation in the context of this digital transformation of the ‘hard-boiled detective novel’, and to further examine the relationship of exchange that exists between linear and digital texts. Videogames are still largely ignored in education as textual subjects but L.A. Noire is potentially transgressive, in terms of its potential to be taught / studied as a book (novel) in its digitally transformed state.

This project will explore the ways in which gamer-students and teachers might work with L.A. Noire to reconfigure dynamics of expertise, begin a remediation of the English Literature curriculum and respond to the digital transformation of what we think it means to ‘read’ in order to think differently about the function of books and the nature of textual authority in the digital age.

Congratulations Richard – this is an excellent achievement! 😀

Richard is a peer reviewer for the AHRC which he believes directly informs his own bidding activity – you can read his review of the benefits of being a peer reviewer here: Life as an AHRC Peer Reviewer. He has also made use of our internal peer review service (the RPRS) to help to strengthen his proposals prior to submission – you can read his review of the RPRS here: One Man’s Experience of the Research Proposal Review Service

Find out about Mixtape – the Media School’s excellent flexible CPD portfolio

BU is committed to developing its Continuing Professional Development portoflio. One School that has already done some excellent work in this area is the Media School. They launched their provision two years ago and now have over 250 students on a variety of CPD pathways – some delivered by BU and some delivered in partnership with employers such as the BBC and Pearson. All of the courses are accredited by Skillset, the sector skills council for creative and media. To find out more about the short course offer in the Media School and to hear from current students and employers, watch this amazing short video: http://mixtape.bournemouth.ac.uk/overview.html

Visit the Mixtape website here: http://mixtape.bournemouth.ac.uk/

Find out about Max Lowenstein’s research into denunciation

Dr Max Lowenstein, from the Law Department in the Business School, has a piece of research coming out in Criminology & Criminal Justice: An International Journal (rated A in the Excellence Research Australia journal ranking list) that explores the meaning of judicial denunciation. The article attempts to relate sentencing principle, policy and social theory to legal practice by comparing the perceptions of English and Danish lower Court judges when sentencing minor theft offenders. There is no coherent international academic agreement as to what judicial denunciation means. The qualitative data gathered by interviewing Danish and English judges commonly pointed to the ‘public condemnation of someone or something’ Oxford Dictionaries Online (World English). In other words, judges pointing out wrongful behavior in theft offenders during sentence summation and explaining how this impacts victims, themselves and wider society. Through a small comparison of judicial perceptions in two distinct legal cultures there were common hints provided as to what denunciation may mean and what it could achieve when applied to theft offenders. In England, the potentially negative repercussions of denouncing theft offenders in Court were the focus. As one English lay judge eloquently summed up;

‘There is little impact on hardened persistent theft offenders because they know full well what they have done is wrong. It is like water off a duck’s back to them. Public shaming only has an impact if the theft offender cares about what others think of him.’

 However, in Denmark, the potentially positive repercussions of denouncing theft offenders in Court were the focus. As one Danish professional judge confidently stated;

‘When you explain why conduct is unacceptable in society, particularly early on in a theft offender’s anti-social habits, it can act as an important wake up call.’

Sadly comparative qualitative data on judicial denunciation is very rare due to the significant challenges it presents to the researcher. Indeed this research comparing such an important element of the sentencing approach had never been attempted before. By gathering more data across legal cultures it may be possible to align our theoretical understandings of judicial denunciation with the common perceptions in legal practice across Europe and beyond. In this way, comparative academics can contribute to the continuing future globalization of criminal justice. Much more research on judicial denunciation can and should be done. In so doing, how public condemnation of wrongful behavior is commonly perceived by judges in relation to similar criminal offences across different legal cultures will begin to emerge.

Assessing societal impact of social work research

REF Subjects, Research themes

Edwin Van TeijingenREF logoJonathan Parker
The Research Excellence Framework, or REF, is the new assessment method for publically funded research in universities. Its controversial new ‘impact’ element rates work based on evidence of social, economic or cultural benefits generated from it. But how easily can such things be quantified, particularly in applied academic subjects like social work?

Professors Jonathan Parker and Edwin van Teijlingen from Bournemouth University have addressed these questions in their paper ‘The Research Excellence Framework (REF): Assessing the Impact of Social Work Research on Society’, published in Practice: Social Work in Action.

They argue that ‘the framework raises doubts about whether it is possible to capture fully the impact of social work research at all, and social work itself for that matter’, and stress that some pathways need to be identified to do this.

In suggesting ways to evidence impact, such as primary evaluative research, Parker and Van Teijlingen also outline the stumbling blocks. There are data protection laws and the expense and time of tying up research evaluation with another research project.

The solution, they say, is for social work research to be built and undertaken in partnership with social care agencies; that impact is everybody’s concern and practitioners and those who use social work services and their carers have a role to play in its creation and identification.

Parker and Van Teijlingen acknowledge that the REF will promote critical-thinking, engage practitioners and address the challenges of public spending restraint, but express a deep-seated concern that this new method of assessment will mark a loss of ‘conceptual, theoretical and critical’ research.

Although assessing research through improved social, economic, health, and environmental aspects of life is unlikely to be questioned, Parker and Van Teijlingen strongly argue that it should not be the only set of research outcomes recognised.  They argue that if the REF approach becomes common currency, ‘society is likely to lose the deeper understandings and meanings that have permeated thinking and, no doubt practice and behaviour.’

Both firmly believe BU’s research programme designed to enhance social work practice through continuing professional education has changed practice and influenced policy, as well as numerous other benefits to culture, public services, health, environment and quality of life.

Read Parker and Van Teijlingen’s full paper.

TheHorseCourse – changing behaviour in prisoners

Dr Ann Hemingway from BU’s School of Health and Social Care is working with Dr Rosie Meek from the University of Southampton to work with prisons to deliver TheHorseCourse, where horses are used to challenge offending behaviour.

The horses are trained to give clear and unbiased feedback on mental and emotional self control. Tasks are progressive and challenging, requiring the participants to remain calm and focused… or lose the plot! 

Prisoners are coached to overcome frustration and failure by taking control over their thoughts and feelings. The horses provide both motivation and feedback, and reliably create positive change with even the most difficult individuals.

Initial findings are extremely positive, with participants showing results such as:

  • better self control
  • greater engagement with available education
  • confidence as learners
  • stronger focus on positive goals
  • hope

The horsemanship goal of the 7 sessions is to gain Parelli Level 1 accreditation, the more important goal is to have the skills to lead constructive and satisfying lives.

One of the participants has commented: “”I’ve been on anger management courses, alcohol courses, things like that – this is much different, you’re learning it physical, not mental if you know what I mean. It’s helped me more, without a doubt. I don’t like talking. …Normally, with other courses you’re in a group of people… you have to talk about your issues and things like that, but here you get it out in a different way, you’re doing physical things not just talking. I’ve been doing that since I was 6 years of age and it’s never worked. I learnt a lot about myself. I can actually do things. I always say I can’t but I can.”

‎”From the video based evaluation undertaken so far it is clear to me that this intervention shows real innovation and promise and may indeed have the potential to reduce reoffending. To date there has been no published longitudinal evaluation focused on this type of intervention. It is for this reason that we have committed to undertaking a pilot evaluation.” Dr Ann Hemingway, Bournemouth University, (Public Health Interventions)
 
Reliably changing behaviour in the most difficult prisoners, to donate please visit: https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/thehorsecourse
 
Join TheHorseCourse Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/TheHorseCourse
 
Dr Ann Hemingway is also the course lead for BU’s MSc Public Health course (part-time and full-time options). Read more about the course to see how you could bring about positive changes in health promotion and influence policies to improve public health and wellbeing locally, nationally and internationally.
 
 

BU academics win AHRC grant!

Awarded & submitted bids

We heard some excellent news at the end of last week that BU academics Dr Bronwen Thomas and Dr Julia Round, both based in the Media School, have been awarded funding from the AHRC!

The research project, due to start imminently, aims to understand the impact of digital transformations on the reading process. Digital technologies have made it much easier for readers to participate in a wide range of activities around their reading, including connecting with other readers, commenting on a range of texts, and even writing stories themselves.  Online communities and fan forums present researchers with a wealth of data not only on what readers are reading, but how they are reading and engaging with texts. This data is potentially invaluable, especially in a context where reading is supposedly in decline, and where new devices such as ereaders are threatening to supplant the printed book.  This project will investigate the implications of these changes, and how they may potentially benefit a wide range of stakeholders, including those working in education and in the creative industries, as well as academics interested in readers and audiences.  The research will provide insights into emerging forms, practices and epistemologies amongst readers, while also reflecting on the ethical and methodological implications for researchers engaged in this kind of activity.

This is an excellent achievement, congratulations Bronwen and Julia 🙂

Bronwen and Julia’s successful proposal was reviewed internally via our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) prior to submission, and they also received support from Martin Pickard during one of his grant writing sessions. BU regularly hosts these sessions with Martin – keep an eye on the Blog for the next one to be advertised! It is strongly advised that all research proposals are reviewed via the RPRS prior to submission. See our RPRS webpage or contact Caroline O’Kane for further details.

BU’s Sarah Bate talks about developmental prosopagnosia at Birkbeck College

In September 2011 BU’s Dr Sarah Bate was invited to talk at a Face-Blindness Open Day at Birkbeck College.  The event was attended by people with prosopagnosia (face blindness) from all over the world and the media.  The other keynote speakers were big names in the face processing world: Brad Duchaine (Dartmouth College), Tim Valentine (Goldsmiths) and Martin Eimer (Birkbeck).

You can watch an excellent video of Sarah’s presentation here:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdCMj7Yp6CU&feature=related

BUCRU – Supporting the development of grant applications

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

In today’s post we give a case study of how Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) recently supported the development of a grant application.

Case study

We recently supported a Programme Development Grant (www.ccf.nihr.ac.uk/PGfAR/PDG/Pages/default.aspx) application to the National Health Service (NHS) National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The Unit receives funding from the NIHR to be the Dorset Office of the NIHR Research Design Service (RDS), and thus can support local researchers in the University and the NHS to develop their funding applications. The topic of this grant application was early warning systems for use in an obstetric setting. Early warning systems are used by clinical staff in hospital to identify clinical problems before they get too serious, for example by regularly monitoring vital signs such as blood pressure. The purpose of Programme Development Grants is to fund preliminary work ahead of a larger Programme Grant for Applied Research (PGAR; www.ccf.nihr.ac.uk/PGfAR/Pages/Home.aspx). 

This support involved:

  • Providing methodological input in systematic reviews, surveys, qualitative designs, quantitative designs notably a sample size calculation, and trial design.
  • Patient and public involvement (PPI) – the team has a designated person supporting PPI.
  • Team development – a strong team needed to be developed with the appropriate skill mix to deliver the programme of research.  Four members of BUCRU became co-applicants on the proposal bringing methodological expertise in systematic reviews, qualitative research, quantitative research, and PPI support.  Via our link with the RDS we also have access to health economist support.   Collaborations were initiated with the Wessex Health Innovation and Education Cluster (HIEC; www.wessexhiecpartnership.org.uk/) to gain support in the educational/ training aspects of the research.  
  • Liaison – we liaised with a number of different organisations, such as Research and Knowledge Exchange Operations for costing the Bournemouth University (BU) costs, the NHS host organisation that will be responsible for the research, and the Market Research Group (MRG; https://mrg.bournemouth.ac.uk/) who were involved to support the administration and data entry for the survey component of the project.
  • Identification of appropriate funding schemes.
  • Obtained peer review from RDS colleagues across the region to provide feedback on the suitability of the funding scheme and the ‘readiness’ for submission. This service is usually provided through regular Scientific Committee meetings that act as ‘mock’ funding committees (www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk/scientific_committee.htm).

Quote from lead applicant: “Without the expertise and assistance of BUCRU staff it would not have been possible to even contemplate applying for a large and competitive grant such as the NIHR Programme Development Grant” .

Please contact us for support with health research:

Louise Ward (administrator):

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit

R505 Royal London House

Christchurch Road

Bournemouth BH1 3LT

BUCRU@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tel: 01202 961939

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru/

People at Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

In yesterday’s posting we gave a brief introduction to BUCRU. Today we introduce you to the members of the team.

 

Louise Ward

Louise is one of the administrators for the unit and has been with the team since 2008.  She has worked in various NHS settings and has an interest in marketing.  Both her undergraduate and Masters degrees were studied here at Bournemouth University.

Professor Paul Thompson

Paul is Consultant Rheumatologist at Poole Hospitaland Visiting Professor at BU. He was appointed Director of the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education (CoPMRE) in 2007, where he has been leading developments between research and education active doctors in NHS Trusts and the academic community at the University. He is Co-director of BUCRU, Lead for the musculoskeletal local priority group for the Western Comprehensive Local Research Network (CLRN) and Fellow of the NHS Improvement Faculty. He is interested in clinical research and service development in the rheumatic diseases. He supervises PhD students and is an External Examiner at other Universities.

Dr Sarah Thomas

Sarah is Deputy Director (methodology). She has a background in psychology and since 2000 has worked in the NHS in Dorset.  As well as supporting other researchers in a Research Design Service capacity, she also conducts research. Her main research interests are in the field of multiple sclerosis (MS) and she is currently Chief Investigator for a pilot study funded by the UK MS Society exploring the use of the Nintendo Wii™ in people with MS.

Professor Peter Thomas

Peter is Co-Director and leads on research methodology. He has a background in epidemiology and statistics, and has been with Bournemouth University since 1996. He has a special research interest in psychosocial aspects of chronic disease and much of his recent work has focussed on multiple sclerosis.

Dr Zoe Sheppard

Zoe is a demographer with particular experience investigating socio-economic status.  She joined Bournemouth University in October 2009 as a Research Fellow in Research Methods.  She provides research methods support for people doing health research and support writing grant applications in her National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Design Service (RDS) capacity.

Suzanne Sheppard

Suzanne is a Clinical Researcher recently recruited from the pharmaceutical industry to help manage the unit’s clinical trials.  She has experience in setting-up and monitoring clinical trials across phases 1 to 3 in a variety of therapeutic areas. 

Annabel Kenny

Annabel is a Clinical Research Administrator who joined Bournemouth University in October 2009.  She provides support to Dr. Tamas Hickish, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Bournemouth Hospital/Poole Hospital and the rest of the research team on various ongoing research projects within the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit.

Liz Griffiths

Liz works for the Royal Bournemouth Hospital as a research facilitator.  She has been working in research within the NHS since 2003 in a variety of roles.  Currently focusing on supporting researchers to develop proposals and prepare submissions to regulatory authorities.

Louise Fazakarley

Louise is a Physiotherapy lecturer with experience in neurological rehabilitation, the management of chronic disability and rehabilitation research. She joined Bournemouth University in 2006 to establish and teach on the BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy course. Louise is currently working on the MS Society funded pilot study to look at the Nintendo Wii™ as a method of helping people with MS increase their physical activity.

Audrey Dixon

Audrey is the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education (CoPMRE) co-ordinator and co-administrator for BUCRU.  She has worked for the NHS since 1988.  She first joined Professor Paul Thompson in 2001 to assist him with his academic work, following his secondment to the university.  Audrey was seconded to BU in 2003.  She now looks after a growing Visiting Faculty of 41 members and the education arm of CoPMRE. She is very proud to see the little acorn grow into a Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education and BUCRU.

Roger Baker

Roger is Professor of Clinical Psychology and runs the MSc course Foundations in Clinical Psychology at BU. He is also a Consultant Clinical Psychologist at Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust.  He has expertise in the design of assessments and questionnaires, research design and clinical evaluation of services and has worked in a dual role as researcher and clinical psychologist at Leeds, Aberdeen & Bournemouth Universities and in NHS Trusts specialising in Mental Health.

Helen Allen

Helen is a health psychologist with a nursing and midwifery background.  She has a qualitative background with a particular interest in the mind:body interface and chronic disease, including patient empowerment.  She is the Unit lead on Public Patient Involvement.

Contact us: In the first instance please contact:

 Louise Ward (administrator):

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit

R505 Royal London House

Christchurch Road

Bournemouth BH1 3LT

BUCRU@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tel: 01202 961939

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru/

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

This week the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) will be posting daily blogs. In these blogs we will tell you a little about the Unit, what we do, who we are, and how we might be able to help in your research endeavours.

What is BUCRU?  

BUCRU is a new model for supporting and conducting health related research in Dorset. It supports researchers in improving the quality, quantity and efficiency of research across the University and local National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. It does this by:

  • helping researchers with developing high quality applications for external research funding (including small grants)
  • ongoing involvement in funded research projects
  • a “pay-as-you-go” consultation service for other work

How can BUCRU help?

BUCRU can provide help in the following areas:

  • Study design
  • Quantitative and qualitative research methods
  • Statistics, data management and data analysis
  • Patient and public involvement in research
  • Trial management
  • Ethics, governance and other regulatory issues
  • Linking University and NHS researchers

BUCRU focuses on health research that has relevance to the NHS. The Unit is available to Bournemouth University staff and people working locally in the NHS. There are no general restrictions on topic area or professional background of the researcher. However we do have special interests in areas such as chronic disease and complex interventions (interventions in nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology and so on).

How is it funded?  

BUCRU is partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and incorporates the Dorset office of the NIHR Research Design Service (http://www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk). Further funding comes from a variety of research grants and contracts.

Contact us: In the first instance please contact

Louise Ward (administrator):

Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit

R505 Royal London House

Christchurch Road

Bournemouth BH1 3LT

BUCRU@bournemouth.ac.uk

Tel: 01202 961939

http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/bucru/

Radio heritage digitised and available on the British Universities Film & Video Council website

Watch this excellent short video from BU’s Professor Hugh Chignell who has worked with London Broadcasting Company’s independent radio news archive to digitalise over 8,000 tapes, creating a live history account which is now available on the British Universities Film and Video Council’s website: http://radio.bufvc.ac.uk/lbc/

To see other BU videos on YouTube go to the BU YouTube page.

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svdm_2f4V24

Research into public health and tourism strategies

Watch this excellent short video from BU’s Dr Heather Hartwell (School of Tourism and School of Health and Social Care) who describes unique research facilitating strategic direction for public health, in alignment with tourism strategies, aimed at creating conversation and collaboration

To see other BU videos on YouTube go to the BU YouTube page.

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8DM9zKU1c

Workshop on Evolving Predictive Systems

Workshop on Evolving Predictive Systems

co-located with the 12th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature (PPSN-2012)

September 1-5, 2012

Taormina, Italy

In recent years, the data mining scientific community witnessed a very strong demand for predictive systems that will be able to evolve and adapt. The range of tasks fulfilled by evolving predictive systems is very broad and covering many different application areas. Despite the high number of publications dealing with applications, there are still unaddressed pressing issues of evolving predictive systems design and development, such as complexity analysis, ensemble architectures and meta-learning. This workshop is devoted to the discussion of robust, context aware and easy-to-use evolving predictive systems, which improve, adapt and possibly maintain themselves within their respective environments and constraints.  Contributions presenting recent work on ensemble systems, complexity analysis and meta-learning are particularly welcome.

The workshop addresses people from the scientific IT community who are active in the research domain of data-driven systems capable to adapt to changing situations and environments. The considered approaches can include evolutionary algorithms, other nature-inspired methods or heuristic approaches. Special focus will be put on research dealing with ensemble architectures, as well as with complexity issues (size, form and interpretation of the solution formula, time and algorithm complexity) and meta-learning incorporation.

Researchers are invited to submit original work as papers of not more than 10 pages. Authors are encouraged to submit their papers in LaTeX. Papers must be submitted in Springer Verlag’s LNCS style.

Topics of interest

Topics that are in the area of interest of the workshop include, but are not limited to:

•             Advanced Modelling Techniques for Evolving Predictive Systems
•             Evolving Predictive Ensembles
•             Complexity Analysis for Evolving Predictive Systems
•             Advanced Adaptation Mechanisms
•             Meta-learning
•             Applications

Important Dates

Submission of Papers: 2 April 2012

Notification of Acceptance: 1 June 2012

Camera-Ready submission of Papers: 20 June 2012

Early Registration Deadline: 25 June 2012

Conference: 1-5 September 2012

Papers are submitted by direct email to mailto:atsakonas@bournemouth.ac.uk

Organization Committee

Bogdan Gabrys, Bournemouth University, UK, bgabrys@bournemouth.ac.uk

Athanasios Tsakonas, Bournemouth University, UK, atsakonas@bournemouth.ac.uk

Mailing address: Bournemouth University, Poole House, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset, BH12 5BB, UK