SOcial Care Rapid evAluation TEam (SOCRATES)

Background

There is an urgent need to improve social care for adults, children and families. Decision-makers need to know which innovations and service developments are promising (in terms of effectiveness, affordability and equity), how to scale, spread and sustain them, and they need this evidence in a timely fashion. SOCRATES (SOcial?Care?Rapid evAluation TEam) has been commissioned to address this need.

It is a collaboration between researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science, King’s College London and the University of Central Lancashire. Aim

The team’s purpose is to develop the evidence base about innovations and service developments in social care. We will do this by co-producing rapid evaluations that deliver actionable knowledge for decision-makers to improve the lives of people in the short and long-term and insight to enable the scaling, spread and sustainability of promising innovations and service developments.

Evaluation approach and methods

To deliver our aim we will work closely with decision-makers and people with experience of social care. We will maximise opportunities for co-production throughout our evaluations and will develop a network of public advisors and evidence users. They will contribute to co-creating the plans for SOCRATES, our evaluations and our outputs..

Our co-produced evaluation plans will be tailored to the target population, context and the needs of evidence users. We have a flexible evaluation approach to accommodate many types of evaluations e.g., formative, theory-based, rapid cycle. It comprises six steps: scope; prepare (including ethical review); investigate; analyse; action and follow-up; review, reflect and learn.

We expect to use and combine various rapid methods and use a range of theories to interpret our findings. Each evaluation will have a co-production group, who will take part in as many of the evaluation steps as possible, offering the maximum level of influence within activities associated with each step. We will co-create accessible findings summaries and work with the participating sites to help them use our research to improve their practice and operations.

We will promote equality, diversity and inclusion within our ways of working. We will encourage and enable diverse groups of individuals and organisations to join our networks, research team and participate in our evaluations. We will investigate the equity and inclusion implications of the innovations / service developments we evaluate.

Dissemination and impact

Learning is at the heart of our approach. We want our research to inform both rapid evaluation practice and action beyond the evaluation sites, encouraging others to adopt promising innovations / service developments. We will hold annual co-learning events with network members and co-production teams to capture and share the learning from our evaluations.

These events will also be a forum to develop plans for scaling and spreading promising innovations / service developments and co-create accessible outputs for different audiences.

To ensure we reach many audiences, we will use social media channels and blogs to share our research. We will write peer-reviewed journal articles, and share findings at conferences and webinars. We will co-present and co-author outputs with our partners to maximise impact. Conclusion

We want SOCRATES to become the leading centre for rapid evaluations in social care, co-producing rapid evaluations with the public and people delivering social care that make a difference around the issues that matter to them, and encourage the scaling, spread and sustainability of promising innovations and service developments.