What is researching 'in residence': the benefits and challenges
Speaker(s):
Bio: Dr Isabelle Latham is Researcher-in-Residence for Hallmark Care Homes and honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester. She is the UK's first researcher-in-residence within a care home organisation and supports Hallmark's care homes to undertake dementia care research of importance to them in ways that include all members of their communities, and works to ensure research evidence is translated into practice change that positively impacts people's day to day lives. Isabelle has 25 years' experience in social care including as a direct care worker. She later focussed on research and education specialising in creating positive organisational cultures and effective learning for frontline staff. She is co-author of the book 'Education and Training in Dementia Care: a person-centred approach published by Open University Press in March 2023.
Abstract:
In 2022 Hallmark Care Homes employed its own in-house Researcher-in-Residence. This is the first role of its kind in the care home sector, and is underpinned by the philosophy that those who visit, work and live in care homes are experts in care and how it can be improved. Embedding a researcher within the organisation aims to empower and skill these 'internal experts' to understand, apply and contribute to research in their own care homes, across the organisation and the wider care home sector.
This presentation will describe the three main functions of the researcher-in residence: 1) Supporting individual care homes to identify, design and deliver their own research projects; 2) Co-ordinating organisation-wide research opportunities; and 3) Communicating latest evidence in practice-friendly ways. It will then explore the benefits and challenges of the approach from the perspectives of the researcher, the organisation, and crucially, in terms of successful research impacts.