Martin, Hannah, and Meredith recently attended a Research Impact workshop, hosted by the Social Services Research Group (SSRG) to address the gap between research, policy and practice that exists in health and social care research.  The SSRG is a non-profit organisation which aims to provide a network and forum for research with members coming from a range of professional groups and organisations committed to advancing knowledge of social and health care services.

The Research Impact workshop focussed not only on the translation of research but also on the localisation of results into relevant contexts.  The day offered an opportunity to discuss some of the barriers to dissemination and implementation of research results such as language, length, and complexity of research reports.  Diversity in social care services was mentioned several times throughout the day as the field is challenged by many different stakeholders and a varied extent to which practice can be evidence-informed.  Solutions were discussed to engage practitioners with new media, research training opportunities for qualifying practitioners, and developing a formal network to connect with independent sector organisations.

Martin joined Chris Rainey (West Sussex CC and SSRG) and Deborah Rutter (SCIE) on a panel at the start of the day, and we all enjoyed the opportunity to network with other professionals in health and social care.   As a team we discussed ways that we can reach a wider audience with the results from the Connecting People Intervention Study.  Some of those include brochures to share our results from the systematic reviews, videos and packages of training materials, and of course continuing to promote the blog for frequent study updates.  We welcome your feedback on useful tools to disseminate our research findings, please feel free to leave comments below!