Gladstone’s is a special place. It is the only residential library in the UK and it offers a unique environment in which to meet and talk together, but also to write in the beautiful, peaceful library.
We were lucky enough to spend some time there funded by Sheffield’s School for Social Care Research capacity development funds. Ten members of the team, including academic and professional services colleagues, spent time writing in Gladstone’s beautiful library.
Cassie Kill (Education) spent the retreat writing an early career research fellowship application. The proposal, about imagining anti-ableist institutions, brings together several strands of her work in an ambitious, five-year programme of collaborative research with artists and disabled people. Spanning both universities and arts institutions, the proposal draws on Cassie’s doctoral work about a gallery youth collective; her current work on academic ableism with Professor Rebecca Lawthom; and her research with a learning disability arts collective - The Professors (part of the Wellcome Anti-Ableist Research Cultures project). The time at Gladstone’s Library allowed Cassie to develop bold plans to bring these wide-ranging areas of expertise together, and to articulate the political importance of creating radical collective imaginaries of anti-ableist institutions.
Becky Driscoll (Centre for Care) spent her time at the retreat beginning the analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews with welfare benefits advisors, exploring their perspectives of complexity and inflexibility in the benefits system for unpaid carers in England and Wales. This will lead to an academic paper and a policy briefing. This is part of a larger inquiry about the financial wellbeing of unpaid carers. She also took the opportunity to consider further developing this work into a grant application for a larger research project. As well as making progress on this work in beautiful surroundings, Becky really appreciated the opportunity to spend time with colleagues with shared interests in care and disability research.
Suzanne Duffin (School of Information, Journalism and Communication) used her time at the retreat to develop her research plans for an SSCR funding application, to explore the information needs of people who provide social care and support for autistic adults. This included updating her literature review, and looking for areas to develop from her PhD thesis. In addition to the benefits of having dedicated time in peaceful surroundings to do this, Suzanne particularly valued the opportunities to engage with other researchers, exchange ideas, and discuss shared research interests. As much of her PhD took place during Covid and its aftermath, opportunities to do this were very limited. Working part-time due to caring responsibilities, and working from home, can feel very isolating, and the retreat also helped Suzanne to feel much more connected to other researchers from the University of Sheffield.
Alice Dunning (SCHARR) spent her time at the retreat working on the draft of the final paper from the EQUALD project. This project, funded by the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HS&DR) Programme, set out to explore how to improve access to Individual Service Funds (ISFs) for adults with learning disabilities. The project involved working closely with adults with a learning disability, support providers and commissioners to co-produce practical toolkits that aim to support the delivery of successful ISFs. The retreat gave Alice valuable space to bring together all of the work from the two final work packages of the EQUALD project, drawing together the findings from the co-production workshops and the formative evaluation of the toolkits. It was also a chance to connect with colleagues from the School for Social Care Research, just as the TEC-LD project, which Alice is co-leading and which is funded by SSCR, began in July. TEC-LD focuses on understanding what social care really needs from technology, working with people with learning disabilities, families and social care professionals. The retreat provided Alice with time to reflect on the closing of the EQUALD project and the transition into TEC-LD, marking the end of one chapter and the exciting beginning of another.
Katherine Runswick-Cole (Education, SSCR) spent time writing part of a co-authored book chapter on transdisciplinary and translational research exploring the ways in which critical disability studies and studies of care have become entangled with one another in productive ways. The writing draws on recent research projects Tired of Spinning Plates? An exploration of the mental health of older carers/adults of people with learning disabilities (HSDR, NIHR) What about me? People with learning disabilities living on the edges of support (NIHR, RfSC).
Laura Sbaffi (Senior Lecturer, School of Information, Journalism and Communication) spent her time at the retreat addressing the peer review feedback she received on her paper titled “Health literacy in underserved communities: Co-producing research priorities” submitted to the Health Information and Libraries Journal. This article is one of the outputs of a KE funded project Laura has been working on together with other colleagues from the School of IJC, the Deep End Research Alliance, and the Somali, Roma and Yemeni communities in Sheffield. The retreat was the perfect opportunity to carve out just enough time to work on the article!
Martina Smith (Sheffield Research Institute, SSCR) spent time writing an invited book chapter for a forthcoming edited book ‘Disability in Turbulent Era’. Martina’s chapter explores a political concept of love in social care systems. The time at Gladstone’s allowed Martina to write up research from her doctoral thesis and further develop her theoretical analysis and contextualisation within social care. This was also a wonderful opportunity to spend time with colleagues working in social care. For Martina who is a parent carer, this time meant so much and allowed her to focus without spinning all the usual plates for a couple of days! Huge thanks to SSCR for supporting this.
Gemma Stephens (Project Manager, SSCR) used her time to complete the written assignment for her Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching and Mentoring. She plans to use this to provide effective 1:1 career coaching for early career researchers (ECR) affiliated with the School for Social Care Research at Sheffield. In doing so, she hopes to support the SSCR’s commitment to developing a culture of capacity development throughout all their activity, and to help ECR to build their future careers in social care research. The retreat gave welcome and much needed space for Gemma to consider and plan crucial aspects of her coaching provision, including contextual factors related to coaching in research, issues around contracting and safeguarding, and the types of behaviours, skills and knowledge of an effective coach. Furthermore, Gemma was delighted to support the group to bond and strengthen their relationships, and to spend time with such wonderful colleagues. She hopes to create a SSCR/social care research writing group to keep the momentum going!
Lauren White (Lecturer, Education) was grateful for the opportunity to spend time thinking about developing a research proposal and time out of the busy teaching and research schedule. Her time at Gladstones allowed her to develop the foundations of a research fellowship exploring experiences of health, illness and disability with a specific focus on how people find joy and glimmers of hope in their everyday lives. This will soon become a research application and she is hopeful to develop and expand networks and relationships with those in the School for Social Care Research. This retreat was a lovely opportunity to do this and is looking forward to more collaborations, partnerships and writing groups in the future!
Grace Whitfield (Centre for Care) used the retreat to code interview transcripts from Technologies that Matter – a co-produced project about how people who have care needs use technology, funded by the ESRC and the NIHR. Grace valued the (quiet) time and space that the retreat gave her to go through transcripts in depth, refine codes that the co-production group had identified, and apply the coding framework across transcripts in preparation for the group’s next analysis session. Grace also used the retreat to talk to her colleagues in a new project called TEC-LD, which has just started as the Technologies That Matter project nears the end. TEC-LD, funded by the SSCR, will also be looking at technology in social care contexts. It will focus on what mainstream technologies are used in practice, and what the risks and benefits of these technologies might be.
In the midst of all the writing, we felt very lucky to spend time together building our research capacity and at the same time building our research community.
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