Building a research, innovation and improvement skills development approach for social care

Maximise the impact of our work we recognise the need to increase knowledge skills & experience in research, innovation & improvement. This project will identify the needs & solutions to supporting skills development in these key areas.

We require a supplier to help co-design an approach to capability & skills building in research, innovation & improvement for people working in social work & social care in Wales by:

using a discovery phase, to understand & synthesise the research we already have & look at existing frameworks & initiatives across research, innovation & improvement

using design & co-production principles to engage with people in creative & innovative ways to gain nuanced understanding of their needs

assessing how well existing learning & development opportunities meet the needs of people working in social care, including how well known they are & whether the content is relevant & easy to access & identifying gaps in current provision

recommending a number of tangible, action-focussed alpha projects designed to meet those needs

designing longer-term, overarching approach for research, innovation & improvement skills development.

Produce early prototypes & support us to test out agreed alpha projects, which might include:

Using & signposting to existing initiatives but implemented in new & creative ways

Adapting existing initiatives for Wales & for social care

Piloting new approaches e.g designing new learning & development opportunities

By working in social work & social care we mean:

A wide variety of people including social workers, social work students, social care workers, managers, leaders & commissioners

Working in a wide variety of settings including local authorities, provider organisations (both independent, third sector & local authority), as well as settings like health, education & the criminal justice system

Supporting children or adults

By skills we mean:

The skills people need to access, understand, use & generate research in their day-to-day work

the skills people would like to develop to take on bigger research projects &/or to pursue research careers

the skills people need to innovate in their day-to-day work & to support innovation in social care

the skills people need to continuously reflect on, improve & develop their work

The aim of this project is to inform the way Social Care Wales & Health & Care Research Wales support the development of research, innovation & improvement skills across social care in Wales.

We want partnership & collaboration to be at the heart of what we design as we know that linkages enhance research capacity & capability. We want to reuse, reimagine & embed existing learning & development opportunities wherever we can.

We’ll use the output of the project to pilot, test & implement support for research, innovation & improvement. We recognise that social care is complex & that there is no single response that will meet all workforce needs, but we anticipate that support could include:

learning for research, innovation & improvement practice, for example, small scale capacity building programmes focused on the social care workplace

schemes designed to develop formal skills & careers, for example, funding postgraduate degrees

other creative ways of developing skills, for example, apprenticeships, coaching & mentoring, peer support.

We have an opportunity to take a creative & sustainable approach, which uses our existing learning. We anticipate that the first stage of the project will be to understand what we already know. We’re also keen to learn from social care capacity-building projects elsewhere.

Most importantly, we want to focus on actions which will deliver better outcomes for people who use care& support in Wales. Our core goal is to make sure research, innovation& improvement count by supporting them to happen in practice. The IMPACT Evaluation of the Social Services & Wellbeing Act has shown the gap between the rhetoric of the Act & the reality of many people who use care & support.