Connecting practice with policy

Posted on November 29, 2012 by mgoat73

We have now trained fourteen agencies across England in the Connecting People Intervention (CPI) model. We use the term ‘training’ loosely, because much of what we have been doing is facilitating a collaborative learning process. This has been especially insightful for members our research team, who have sought to make each training day bespoke to the agency based on strengths and needs of the workers. We don’t see traditional roles of ‘trainee’ and ‘trainer’!

As you know from this previous post, the health and social care agencies involved in the study are very diverse, yet many face similar challenges to their ways of working with people receiving services. From our discussions with social workers, community psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists, community development workers and support time and recovery workers, we are gaining a better understanding of how the CPI model fits into existing practice. The feedback thus far has been positive, with most workers affirming that the model largely describes the work they are currently doing.

We are also learning from practitioners how recent changes in policy impact on their work and the implementation of the CPI model. For example, community mental health teams are under pressure to discharge people back to primary care much earlier than previously. While consonant with the principles of autonomy, independence and social inclusion, this reduces the time which practitioners have to engage with people and help develop their circles of support prior to discharge. Sometimes social workers are able to do little more than sign-posting to other resources before moving people on and out of ‘the system’.

NHS targets such as CQUIN and payment by results are shaping practice in mental health services. Additionally, the move towards personal budgets and self-directed support in social care are shaping social work practice. Both can squeeze out working with local communities and communities of interest to implement the CPI model. However, agencies participating in the CPI study are finding creative ways to incorporate the model into their practice. In Derby, for example, social workers are using the model to define their practice and articulate their distinctive role in working with people with mental health problems.

Last week I spoke to a conference of mental health social workers in London about their untapped potential (my presentation can be downloaded here). I argued that an over-reliance on statutory functions to define mental health social work leaves the profession vulnerable to the whims of policy makers. There was an overwhelming consensus from practitioners that bureaucracy needs to be reduced and more time freed up to work with people to implement ways of working as described in the CPI model. Senior social work leaders involved in the CPI study are working hard to free up time for practitioners to work in this way, but there is a long way to go in re-defining mental health social work as the locus of social intervention in mental health services.

In terms of the CPI study, these changes are relevant to our recruitment of new referrals to the study and the way that practitioners are engaging with those individuals. For example, in agencies where the social work role is to primarily assess individuals, the intervention is defined as building a relationship and then engaging collaboratively to identify their strengths, needs, and interests, then signpost them to other services. From our perspective this equal partnership developed between the worker and individual is still adhering to the CPI model and therefore such individuals would be eligible for participation in the CPI study.

As we aim to recruit up to 240 individuals in the coming months we look forward to capturing how policy impacts on practitioners and service users, and on the implementation of the CPI model. We welcome your feedback on how policy impacts on your practice within the CPI model or your experience of it. Please feel free to leave comments below.

The role of the third sector in the Connecting People study

Posted on July 11, 2012 by mgoat73

The third sector plays an important role in the Connecting People study. Four of the agencies in the ethnographic study were in the third sector and at least three in the pilot study will be as well.

These agencies have played a crucial role in shaping the intervention model which we are now starting to pilot. Through observations, interviews and focus groups in third sector agencies we gained an insight into practice which appeared effective at facilitating social connections. We have harnessed these insights and integrated them with those gained from the statutory sector to produce the model.

I have written a paper to share case studies of the four agencies whose practice helped us to develop the Connecting People Intervention model. The full text can be downloaded here. If you don’t have the time to read the full paper, or to whet your appetite, the abstract is reproduced below:

The role of the third sector in social capital enhancement and mobilisation: evidence from an ethnographic study

A number of factors including increasing life expectancy, increasing expectation about independence and decreasing institutional care are creating a sustained growth in the need for social care services for adults in England (Care Quality Commission, 2009). In its vision for a ‘Big Society’, the UK Government aims to increase the role of civil society in the provision of public services such as social care (Department of Health, 2010; Her Majesty’s Government, 2010). Communities are to be empowered to develop local arrangements for the care of vulnerable and marginalised people, based on the reciprocal principle of providing and receiving services, facilitated by personal budgets. Integral to its aim of developing strong communities, the Government is committed to enhancing individual and collective well-being (Department of Health, 2011).

There is robust evidence that positive and supportive social relationships are associated with well-being (Aked et al., 2008; Webber et al., 2011). However, vulnerable adults in need of care services are frequently marginalised in communities and have restricted social networks (Catty et al., 2005). Some social care workers help people to build relationships and strengthen their connections with their local community (Huxley et al., 2009), but this is afforded a low priority by many (McConkey & Collins, 2010) in spite of increasing evidence of the importance of social capital for health and well-being (Kawachi et al., 2007). To address this, we are developing a social intervention for social care workers to use in supporting people with mental health problems to develop and enhance their social relationships. This provides training and a ‘toolkit’ of resources for workers in how to work alongside an individual to explore their current social network, identify their goals (such as increasing confidence or meeting new people, for example), and support them to achieve them.

The intervention has been developed from an ethnographic study of practice in health and social care agencies in the third and statutory sectors, and informed by literature and scoping reviews. This paper presents the findings of the Connecting People study, funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research School for Social Care Research, and will highlight the unique contribution of social enterprises, housing associations and other voluntary sector organisations in connecting people with their local communities. We will discuss the main themes emerging from interviews and observations with over 60 workers and 50 service users gathered over a period of twelve months. We will also present the intervention model which emerged from these findings, which dynamically relates the practice of workers to a cycle of change for service users, in the context of outward-facing agencies which are embedded in their local communities.

We will argue in this paper that the third sector is better placed than statutory agencies to support the participation of people with mental health problems, and other vulnerable adults, in their local communities. The Connecting People study found more innovation, flexibility and creativity in the third sector agencies in the project. However, in times of fiscal retrenchment and resource scarcity, the third sector will need to be more innovative than ever to maintain its success, which cannot rely indefinitely on voluntarism.

References

Aked, J., Marks, N., Cordon, C. and Thompson, S. (2008) Five Ways to Wellbeing. A Report Presented to the Foresight Project on Communicating the Evidence Base for Improving People’s Well-Being London: New Economics Foundation.

Care Quality Commission (2009) The State of Health Care and Adult Social Care in England London: The Stationery Office.

Catty, J., Goddard, K., White, S. and Burns, T. (2005) Social networks among users of mental health day care, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40, 6, 467-474.

Department of Health (2010) A Vision for Adult Social Care: Capable Communities and Active Citizens London: Department of Health.

Department of Health (2011) No Health Without Mental Health: A Cross-Government Mental Health Outcomes Strategy for People of All Ages London: Department of Health.

Her Majesty’s Government (2010) Building a Stronger Civil Society. A Strategy for Voluntary and Community Groups, Charities and Social Enterprises London: The Cabinet Office.

Huxley, P., Evans, S., Beresford, P., Davidson, B. and King, S. (2009) The principles and provisions of relationships: findings from an evaluation of Support, Time and Recovery Workers in mental health services in England, Journal of Social Work, 9, 1, 99-117.

Kawachi, I., Subramanian, S.V. and Kim, D. (eds) (2007) Social capital and health, New York: Springer-Verlag.

McConkey, R. and Collins, S. (2010) The role of support staff in promoting the social inclusion of persons with an intellectual disability, Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 54, 8, 691-700.

Webber, M., Huxley, P. and Harris, T. (2011) Social capital and the course of depression: Six-month prospective cohort study, Journal of Affective Disorders, 129, 1-2, 149-157.

I’m presenting this paper at the 10th Conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research in Siena, Italy, on Friday. I’m hoping to stimulate a discussion about the role of the third sector in social care and social work. I’ll be satisfied, though, if a few people go away having heard about the Connecting People study and perhaps take some ideas home with them.

(The paper is part of a symposium on personalisation. If you’re interested in reading the abstracts of the other papers, these can be found on my blog)

Introducing the Connecting People Intervention

Posted on April 10, 2012 by mgoat73

The Connecting People Intervention is a way of working that helps users of health and social care services to make new social connections beyond these services. Many of its elements can already be found in routine health and social care practice. But its originality lies in utilising individuals’ strengths to co-produce activities and co-define outcomes. New social connections arise as a bi-product of engaging in this process.

Most health and social care practice takes place in worker-individual partnership dyads. Unless working with groups, workers typically work with one individual or family at a time. This working relationship forms the core of the Connecting People Intervention.

The intervention model does not specify the exact form of the worker-individual partnership dyad, or define a hierarchy of expertise. It is simply two people working together. The dyad could be, for example, two peers supporting one another both simultaneously adopting ‘worker’ and ‘service user’ roles ; the worker could be a qualified or unqualified health or social care worker; or the individual using the service at one point in time could be providing the service at a different point of time.

The Connecting People Intervention operates through the principles and practice of co-production. Rather than a traditional model of workers ‘doing’ and individuals ‘receiving’, workers and individuals co-create the objectives and actions together. Decision making is a shared process and both the worker and individual take responsibility for acting upon the decisions made. Both undertake tasks to keep the intervention ‘wheels’ rotating (see figure below). The Connecting People Intervention is a shared journey of discovery with inputs being invested and outcomes being produced for both the worker and the individual. The New Economics Foundation manifesto for co-production provides an excellent and accessible introduction to the concept of co-production and what it means for public services.

The Connecting People Intervention aims to rotate the green and blue wheels in the model. These represent cycles of discovery for both the worker and individual, which result in the development of new social connections and social networks. But before the wheels can start to spin, the worker and individual both need to be prepared to work together. Ideally, the worker needs to have empathy, a ‘can do’ attitude and be a natural networker, while the individual they are working with needs to have some enthusiasm for engaging in this process and to share ownership of it. Both need to be ready to engage in new situations and meet new people.

The Connecting People Intervention model is not a traditional linear process of a worker doing something for or with the individual and an outcome occurring as a result of this. We use the two interlocking circles to represent the fluidity of the process and the uncertainty about when, or if, new social connections are made. However, there are some important tasks to be undertaken at the beginning of the process.

The worker and the individual start by mapping out the individual’s existing social network. This can be done on a piece of paper by using a series of concentric circles. The individual talks about the people in his or her life who they feel closest to (their names go in the inner circles), followed by those they feel less close to (their names go in the outer circles).

Then, both the worker and individual discuss and write down their own strengths, or assets. These may be their interests; things which they – or other people – think they are good at; or their unique qualities. They will draw on these assets throughout the process of the Connecting People Intervention.

Finally, the worker supports the individual to explore their life goals and to discuss what they would like to achieve. The individual needs to be encouraged to think beyond what the service could provide and to consider new opportunities which they had previously not thought possible. Together, the worker and individual select a goal, or a series of goals, to work towards. The shared development of objectives and activities is at the centre of the model because it represents the co-produced activities. When the worker and individual meet for the first time in the context of this model, they discuss the life goals of the individual and they develop a realistic strategy together to help him or her achieve this. The activities which they undertake to achieve these goals may be in the context of what the agency provides or it may be additional to that.

The process of goal attainment is a shared one, as represented by the overlapping blue and green circles. The worker and individual work in partnership. The individual’s journey (represented by the blue circle on the right) is the focus of the intervention process. In achieving his or her goals, the individual is, for example, exposed to new ideas; introduced to new people and activities; and supported to develop skills, interests and social confidence.

The worker’s journey (represented by the green circle on the left) is equally as important in the intervention process as the individual’s. This assumes that the worker will need to develop their own social network knowledge in order to support the individual on their journey. Workers may need to build relationships; foster trust; identify opportunities; engage with the local community of the individual; develop their own networks and resources; adapt to new ideas; and utilise their contacts in the process of supporting the individual they are working with. At any point, they may need to provide extra support or reassess their involvement, while the individual they are working with may need to seek advice from them and develop their own self-awareness of their journey.

The worker needs to look out for barriers which may prevent the individual’s blue wheel from rotating. These work in the opposite direction to the intervention cycle and can pose considerable challenges for some individuals. Barriers may include, for example, stigma; physical health problems; complicated external lives; countervailing attitudes of self and the organisation providing the context for the intervention; ‘bad’ social capital; lack of information; or poor access to services. These barriers will present the worker with a number of challenges, and helping the individual to overcome them are likely to be the most time-consuming element of their work.

The worker-individual dyad described here takes place in the context of a supportive agency. Without a supportive organisational context, the Connecting People Intervention is unlikely to occur. There are a number of features of a supportive agency context including modelling of good practice; skill sharing; community engagement and good local knowledge. The agency can provide a physical environment which facilitates social connections and can provide useful connections with community resources which individual workers may not have. Shared knowledge of the local community and the intervention model held by the agency can prevent interventions failing when workers leave. This can also help to reduce reliance on individual workers who may be the only ones to hold connections within the local community.

The Connecting People Intervention does not specify what the individual and worker should do within this process as it is up to them to co-produce the activities. However, we anticipate that new social connections may be made at any point in this process. The following case study exemplifies how the Connecting People Intervention works:

Simon and Mina

Simon has a good sense of humour and likes to make other people laugh. His new keyworker Mina helped him to recognise that this was a strength and they agreed to work together using the Connecting People Intervention to help him use his humour to make new social connections.

They began by mapping his social network and found that apart from a few family members and friends he had made from within the service, he did not have many social connections. He felt that the people he knew had heard all of his jokes and he wanted to find new outlets for his humour. Simon wanted to do stand-up comedy, but lacked the confidence to do anything about it and did not think that he would be good enough.

Simon and Mina devised a series of smaller goals for Simon to achieve and identified some potential barriers which may need to be overcome to achieve his ultimate goal. Firstly, they thought that social media may be one way for Simon to test out his humour on other people and help his confidence to grow. Mina and Simon both set up accounts on Twitter and learnt to use it together. Mina supported and encouraged Simon to tweet daily jokes and to follow established comedians to learn how they used comedy in everyday online interactions. Simon’s followers slowly grew in number and gave him confidence in his abilities.

Next, both Simon and Mina arranged an ‘open mic’ night in their agency. This provided anyone with an opportunity to perform music, poetry, comedy or any performing art in front of other people (not just those from within the agency). Simon performed a short routine, which was well received.

Finally, Mina encouraged Simon to participate in a small comedy night at his local community centre. Although very anxious about this, he found the encouragement of his Twitter followers and other people within the agency sufficient to encourage him to put himself in the spotlight. He used a familiar routine and he received a similarly positive response.

In addition to the ‘virtual’ social connections Simon made on Twitter, he met people who attended the local community centre and got chatting to them. They have subsequently kept in contact and occasionally meet up at the local café.

Piloting the Connecting People Intervention

This summer we will be piloting the Connecting People Intervention in health and social care agencies in England. We are still looking for agencies to participate in this study, funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research.

We wish to select teams for the pilot whose practice is already similar to the model as we appreciate it may take some quite a lot of time and resources to adapt to this way of working. To help us select agencies for inclusion in the study, we are inviting all those who are interested to complete a brief questionnaire about their work. The questionnaire is available here in a word document to download and complete. The deadline for the return of this questionnaire has now been extended to Friday 20th April 2012 (my email address is given at the end of the questionnaire).

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

From Community Care…

Posted on March 8, 2012 by mgoat73

Published by Community Care on 6th March 2012:

Care services minister Paul Burstow has stated that social work will be at the heart of the forthcoming adult care White Paper. He wants social workers to move away from care management to community development roles, connecting people with resources within their communities. Probably without knowing it, he was articulating the vision behind the Connecting People study.

Connecting with other people is one of the ‘five ways to well-being‘. Many people with mental health problems have small social networks and experience difficulties in making positive social connections. But there are no evidence-based interventions for social workers to use which are effective in helping people with mental health problems to connect with others.

Funded by the National Institute for Health Research School for Social Care Research, the Connecting People study is investigating how health and social care workers can most effectively help young people recovering from an episode of psychosis to connect with others.

Over the past 18 months, we have used ethnographic methods to explore practice in six agencies in the voluntary and statutory sectors. Based on field observations, interviews, focus groups and numerous informal discussions, we have developed an intervention model to guide practitioners in supporting people to develop their social networks.

The model is based upon the principles of co-production. Rather than a traditional model of workers ‘doing’ and individuals ‘receiving’, workers and individuals co-create the objectives and actions within the model together. The model represents a shared journey of discovery with inputs being invested and outcomes being produced for both the worker and the individual.

There is growing interest in co-production and social workers working with adults may be interested to learn more about it. The Social Care Institute for Excellence’s research briefing on co-production is worth a read. Publications from Nesta and the New Economics Foundation also provide valuable insights into how co-production can be applied to public services.

Co-producing interventions can be a challenge when people are in crisis, but our observations have found that this approach can effectively support an individual’s recovery from a health or social problem. Where workers have focused on an individual’s strengths or assets and supported them to use these to achieve their goals, we have found that their engagement with other people increases and social networks grow. The following case study illustrates this:

Robert

Robert (not his real name) was interested in football, but lacked the confidence or motivation to do anything about it. Whilst he was recovering from an episode of psychosis, his mental health team told him about the Start Again Project, which works with young people to support their personal, spiritual and social development, enabling them to lead a fuller life. Start Again engaged his interest in football and supported him to join one of their football sessions.

He felt encouraged and motivated to go to the football sessions by the coaches, who wanted everyone to get to know each other and have a good time while on the pitch. Robert made friends with many of the players who attended the sessions, including his current best friend who subsequently helped him to move to a new flat.

Robert told us how important playing football was for his mental well-being:

“Getting out is nice, particularly when I was a bit lower and less confident. It just helps to get out and get my head up, just to meet people.”

After meeting Robert at Start Again, we discovered that he started to come less frequently as he had found a job.

Building the evidence

Case studies such as this are insufficient to convince commissioners or policy-makers that this approach to practice is effective. Therefore, we are soon to begin piloting and evaluating the intervention model in agencies across England.

We will train workers and help agencies to start implementing the intervention model this summer. The pilot study will evaluate how effective, and cost-effective, it is in improving the well-being and social participation of people with a mental health problem or a learning disability. Final results will be available in spring 2014.

We are currently in the process of recruiting agencies to pilot the intervention. If you know of an agency or team working with either adults with a learning disability or mental health problem, or adults over the age of 65 with a functional mental health problem (i.e. not dementia) which is interested in participating in this study, please click here to read more about what it involves.

This pilot is the next step on the pathway to developing a rigorous evidence-base for interventions which social workers can use to help people to connect with others. This evidence-base will enable social workers to articulate their role more clearly and be confident that their practice is making a difference. We hope that you can join us on this journey.

Does your team want to pilot the Connecting People intervention?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by mgoat73

The Connecting People study is developing and piloting an intervention framework for health and social care workers to support people to develop their social networks. We are now inviting health and social care teams in England working with adults with mental health problems, adults with learning disabilities or older adults with functional mental health problems (i.e. not dementia) to pilot the intervention.

The Connecting People intervention model is based on co-production principles, that is, workers and the people they work with decide the objectives of their engagement together and work together to achieve them. It particularly focuses on social activities which provide opportunities for the development of social relationships. More information about the model (shown in static form below) can be found on a post on my website.

Funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research, the Connecting People pilot study will evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in improving individuals’ well-being and social participation. The intervention model will be piloted in agencies which are able to readily adopt it from summer 2012 onwards.

We are currently searching for 12 agencies in England which would be willing to pilot the model and participate in its evaluation. This will require workers to undertake training of about 3 days (with supervisors undertaking an additional 2 days training to ensure the model becomes embedded in routine practice) and the agency adapting to the requirements of the model. Agencies will also need to support recruitment to the Connecting People pilot study to enable us to evaluate the process of its implementation and its effectiveness.

We wish to select teams for the pilot whose practice is already similar to the model as we appreciate it may take some quite a lot of time and resources to adapt to this way of working. To help us select agencies for inclusion in the study, we are inviting all those who are interested to complete a brief questionnaire about their work. The questionnaire is available here in a word document to download and complete. Please return this to me by email by Friday 16th March 2012 (my email address is given at the end of the questionnaire).

I look forward to hearing from you in due course, but if you have any queries in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you!

The ClearFear Game: Using fun to tackle social anxiety

Posted on February 19, 2012 by mgoat73

Connecting with other people is one of the ‘five ways to well-being’. Many people with mental health problems have small social networks and experience difficulties in making positive social connections. This is the main reason why we are exploring in the Connecting People study how health and social care workers can most effectively help people with mental health problems to connect with others.

One of our findings so far is that many people encounter difficulties in making the first step to connect with others because of a fear of social situations, or social anxiety. Of course, many people like me are shy or introverted. I am not ashamed to admit that I prefer solitary pursuits like blogging to parties, but at least I have a choice. If I would like to engage with other people in social situations, I can. I don’t fear being scrutinized by other people. I don’t worry for days about finding the right words to say to people. I don’t actively avoid social situations or suffer panic attacks when I’m in them. But many people do. Many people unreasonably expect others to be evaluating them negatively. Many avoid social situations or find them intolerably stressful. Many people suffer from social anxiety in various degrees of severity.

An American study found that 5% of the general population experience social anxiety disorder (at the severe end of the social anxiety spectrum) at some point in their lives. Although cognitive behavioural therapy can help, over 80% don’t receive any help. For many, it simply goes undetected. For others, the stigma of asking for help prevents them from doing so. However, we believe that it needs to be openly tackled to enable people to make social connections which can help them to get on with their lives. And we aim to do this using fun.

The Connecting People study team are teaming up with Kingston Recovery Initiative Social Enterprise (RISE) and Playmakers Industries to create the ClearFear Game. Last week, the RSA Catalyst fund – which provides small grants to RSA Fellows to develop innovative solutions to solve social problems – announced an award of £2,000 to help us to design and pilot the game.

The ClearFear Game will be a non-virtual game which will immerse people in social interactions which they would be otherwise fearful to engage in. Using the principle of ‘flow’ from positive psychology and gaming theory, the game will use fun as the active mechanism in relieving fearful situations.

The ClearFear Game will be developed by the Connecting People study team, members of Kingston RISE, Playmakers Industries, RSA Fellows and other experts during a ‘game camp’ on 6th-7th March in London. I’m not really sure what this involves, but judging by the YouTube videos, it looks like a lot of fun! We are actively involving people who experience, or have experienced, social anxiety during these two days to ensure that the game will be playable and fit for purpose.

Once it is designed, we will invite colleagues in Kingston RISE to pilot the ClearFear Game with people experiencing social anxiety to see if it helps at all. We will evaluate their progress before recommending it is used more widely. If the findings of the pilot are promising, we will aim to conduct further experimental evaluations of the outcomes of playing the game.

The development of the ClearFear Game and the results of the evaluation will be published online. The game itself will be made available using a Creative Commons licence. I’ll keep you updated on our progress on this blog and on the Connecting People study website. In the meantime, have fun!

Funding confirmed for pilot of Connecting People Intervention

Posted on December 29, 2011 by mgoat73

The pilot of the Connecting People Intervention will start in 2012, thanks to success with a bid to the third wave of NIHR School for Social Care Research funding.

The grant provides funding for a multi-site pilot to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Connecting People Intervention in comparison with other interventions aimed to promote well-being and social participation. We will be drawing on the expertise of our collaborators to ensure its success: Professor David Morris (Inclusion Institute, University of Central Lancashire), Professor Paul McCrone (Centre for the Economics of Mental Health, IoP), Dr Martin Stevens (Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London), Peter Bates (National Development Team for Inclusion) and Polly Kaiser (Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust).

About the pilot study

It is increasingly important for social care service users in England to develop social relationships and engage in their local communities as care provision diversifies. Social care workers have some skills in supporting people with this, but there is little evidence about which approaches are the most effective or best value for money. This study will provide evidence about ways of working which produce the best outcomes at the lowest cost.

The study will have four components:

1) We will begin with a systematic review of research conducted on this topic across the world to identify examples of effective social care practice. We will also look for examples of good social care practice in England in helping people to participate in their communities and enhance their individual well-being.

2) Building on the work of the Connecting People study with people experiencing psychosis, which is developing a new way for workers to help people with their social relationships (the ‘Connecting People Intervention’), we will develop equivalent guidance for workers supporting people with a learning disability or older adults with a mental health problem. We will consult experts, including users of social care services and their carers, about this guidance to help ensure it is fit for purpose.

3) We will develop a questionnaire to be used in our research that will measure the extent to which workers are following the intervention guidance.

4) We will invite six social care agencies across England to test the Connecting People Intervention and an additional six, identified in the first part of the project, to continue to use their existing ways of working. We will invite 240 people with mental health problems, a learning disability or older adults with a mental health problem receiving services from these agencies for the first time to take part in the study. Participants will be interviewed when they start receiving services, and again twelve months later. They will all be asked the same questions to help us to evaluate the extent to which the Connecting People Intervention is effective and represents good value for money in helping people to improve their social participation and well being.

We aim to ensure that the project will have a significant impact on social care in England by sharing findings about effective and cost-effective ways of improving social participation and well-being widely throughout the sector.

The full technical protocol for the pilot study can be downloaded here.

Updates about the pilot of the Connecting People intervention will be posted on the study blog.

Connecting People Study

health and social care practice promoting inclusion and wellbeing through social participation and community connection

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