Category Archives: Pilot study

The ClearFear Game: Using fun to tackle social anxiety

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Connecting the theory with the practice

Posted on by
Reply

Up to this point, our research has been focussed on gathering evidence from extensive fieldwork to form the base of our intervention.  We have travelled to projects all over the UK and consulted with a wide range of people engaging with different services including workers, volunteers, linked organisations, individuals accessing services, and funders.  This has aimed to ensure that the model is grounded in practical examples, and accurately reflects the processes that occur when a worker and a service user work together to increase the individual’s social capital.  Have a look  to understand in more detail the different components of the model.

Whilst we are still conducting fieldwork within several agencies, we are starting now to draw on our model to form the basis of a user-friendly, comprehensive guide of how to utilise the intervention.  We understand that whilst it is all well and good to have produced the model in the diagrammatical form you see in here, or if you prefer a more detailed explanation of the components on Martin Webber’s blog here, the professionals using it to guide their practice will need a more complete and practical set of materials to work from.

To do this, we are taking information from the fieldwork and using it to ‘flesh out’ the model – providing real-life examples at each of the stages.  For example, at the ‘building relationships’ stage on the worker side we will discuss points learned from interviews with service users as to what a worker can do to make them feel comfortable, including the importance of keeping to regular meeting times, remembering names and key facts.  We will also add suggestions that were given by workers at the projects we have studied on how to build rapport – for example sharing a small amount of information about themselves, or discovering shared interests to create an equal footing for the relationship to be based upon.

In order to supplement these practical ideas, we will also be producing a version of the model containing the procedures of a fictitious ‘gold standard’ organisation.  This takes the elements that different organisations from the study excel at and combines them to provide the ‘perfect’ example of how the intervention will work.  We hope that by combining the practical hints and tips, as well understanding how all of the processes fit together within this ‘gold standard’, professionals will be able to use the intervention to suit their own working style and the strengths and limitations of their organisation.

By continuing to conduct fieldwork as this process occurs, the model stays fresh and dynamic and ensures that the practical guidance that we offer from it does the same.

Once we have completed this process, we will be sending out a draft of the model and accompanying guidance to a wide range of individuals for their opinions.  If you are reading this post and feel that you would like to offer your perspective, please do get in touch with one of us at the study and we can talk about how you would like to contribute.

Next week, we will be visiting a project supported by Hestia in Kingston called Kingston RISE.  This service user led group is big on co-production with other organisations and should help us to discover more about how best organisations can link with external agencies to increase their members’ social capital.  For more information on Kingston RISE’s work, please have a look at this article.

Funding confirmed for pilot of Connecting People Intervention

Posted on by
Reply

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.