Theme lead: Dr Philippa Fibert
Why
Evidence based practice can give us confidence in the interventions we use and provide and upskill practitioners. Many interventions occurring in real world clinical, social, and educational practice are of unknown effectiveness because they are un or under-researched or described. It is in the interests of social justice, sustainability, and both the personal and common good that we conduct research which might help improve the lot of our fellow humans.
Many practitioners, particularly of therapist led and complex interventions, are uncertain how to describe and document the effectiveness of their interventions and/or describe them. In the field of Education, research is a recent, and under-developed resource, where there is much scope for exploring best practice in the classroom. And research focusing on social inequalities is at the heart of St Mary’s core values. This group embraces the need to allow for complexity within research design and acknowledges the validity of a broad variety of different research types to provide meaningful outcomes that can inform all stakeholders: the users of services, and the service providers. Historically placebo controlled RCT designs, testing single variables, have been prioritized, which as often as not do not reflect interventions as experienced in real life. By describing the effectiveness of interventions, we can start to make visible those promising treatments and practices which might improve outcomes, with particular focus on areas where there is unmet need.
What
We aim to enable high-quality, real-world research into interventions occurring in real world practice whether in the clinical, social, or educational setting. Introducing practitioners, teachers, and clinicians to real-world trial designs that might capture the effectiveness of the services they deliver in meaningful ways. Our objectives are:
- To work with practitioners, teachers, social workers, and therapists, within their workplaces to co-construct research within the context where it takes place.
- To conduct high quality research that embraces complexity.
- To develop an evidence-base that enables meaningful clinical, educational, and social outcomes that align with the core philanthropic principles of St Mary’s University.
How
Pragmatism and collaboration will be at the core of our research endeavors, focusing on research capturing the effects of interventions as experienced in clinical, social, and educational practice. We will aim for high quality, whilst acknowledging the importance of the real-world setting. By working with clinicians, therapists, and industry, we will collaboratively establish the context that is important to them, whilst not losing sight of the importance of the end-user. Our research will use qualitative and quantitative methodologies. There are lots of ways to embrace complexity within interventions, and we embrace them all within this research theme.
Who
Internally: practitioners, clinicians, therapists, and educationalists within St Mary’s University. Externally: we will seek collaborations with relevant charities, schools, clinics, support groups etc. For example, current collaborations are with grant-giving charities such as the Waterloo Foundation; and HINT (Homeopathy International). We work closely with support groups such as the local ADHD group ADHD Embrace; and the local ASD service users community group Express. We are also fostering collaborations with local NHS services, particularly relating to PIPs (Personal Independence Payments).