New researcher of the year (highly commended) – Haydn Brown, Manchester City Council – Light rail and the Manchester property market – part 1; Light rail and the Manchester property market – part 2; Light rail and the Manchester property market – part 3 

Most engaging presentation of local area research (shortlisted) – Steven Hibbert, Manchester City Council – PSR Outcomes Framework      

Best use of local area research 1 (highly commended) – Gemma Jones, Lancashire County Council – Breaking the boundaries_service planning based on need not construct 

Best use of local area research 2 – (shortlisted) – Tim Robinson, Manchester City Council – Neighbourhood intelligence (confidential)

Best use of social care or health research 1 – (highly commended) – Farhat Abbas, Lancashire County Council – Saving the children – making infant deaths everybody’s business 

Best use of social care or health research 2 – (highly commended) – Charlotte Harris, Revealing Reality/Wirral Council – Barriers of binary thinking_tackling health related worklessness on the Wirral

Best use of social care or health research 3 – (shortlisted) – Leo Wall, Manchester City Council and Manchester CCGs Business Intelligence – Understanding health demands in Manchester

Further information from: l.frost@manchester.gov.uk

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If you attended the 2014 LARIA conference you might have been at the workshop session run by Tracey Robbins (Joseph Rowntree Foundation) and Angela Browne (Qa Research) on neighbourhood approaches to loneliness. This guest blog from Tracey Robbins marks the publication of the programme evaluation findings today.

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A grass roots approach can make a massive difference to local people experiencing, or at risk of, loneliness, says Julie Wrigley of Qa Research.

My colleagues and I have spent a lot of time over the past two years talking and thinking about loneliness. We found that a grass roots approach really can make a massive difference to local people experiencing, or at risk of, loneliness.

JRF and JRHT’s three-year action research programme, Neighbourhood approaches to loneliness, explored ways of reducing loneliness. It aimed to get people to talk about loneliness, what caused this, and what solutions they might identify and implement. The programme took a participatory approach, engaging community researchers in four varying neighbourhoods in York and Bradford.

While researching our independent evaluation of the programme, it was clear that loneliness touches people of all ages and backgrounds and so many were inspired to join in with the programme – whether by adding their thoughts and comments to researchers, or by becoming community researchers themselves. The programme was able to attract many people who may not usually feel confident to volunteer.

The community researchers have relished the opportunity to make a difference in their communities. They have felt proud and inspired. What’s more, several have made tangible achievements, by starting new training, going to university or getting a new job. Confidence levels, enthusiasm and self-reliance have soared through the roof. Many of the residents are now running preventative ‘loneliness solutions’ in their own communities – playgroups, pop-up cafes, walking groups and cultural markets.

Even the professionals who were involved report that they now have more insight into the effects of loneliness. They say they have changed behaviour in their personal lives to match.

The programme set out to discover whether a neighbourhood approach to loneliness could bring about meaningful change. It adapted to run differently in each of the four areas and there have been benefits for individuals and the wider community in each.

With 7,667 individual comments from almost 2,000 local people there is no shortage of powerful, often highly personal, messages emerging through the programme.

“Busy people can be lonely too.”

This quote came from a young man in an independent supported living scheme. His paid carer suggested that he was not lonely as he went out most days to activities. He said: “But busy people can be lonely too.”

As the programme manager, Tracey Robbins, said: “This hit home hard, not just for those being supported by paid carers but for us all ‘too busy’ to seek out the relationships we want or to look after those we have.”

“Home can be a lonely place.”

Another sad and startling quote that came out from the research.

“I am sure we all know someone, regardless of age, experiencing loneliness or at risk of becoming lonely,” says Tracey. “I am also sure we all can do something to reduce loneliness – our own or another’s.”

Read more about Neighbourhood approaches to loneliness and download our free resource pack.

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Tracey Robbins is the programme manager at JRF. Angela Browne and Julie Wrigley from Qa Research led on the programme evaluation.

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This includes the upcoming LARIA Conference (13th/14th May 2014) and to recognise this we have extended our early bird discount off conference bookings to Thursday 17th April (just before Easter). Book your place now as they are going fast! A place is worth 12 hours accreditation.

The new MRS CPD programme provides all MRS members a framework to demonstrate their achievements, gain recognition for their professionalism and take control planning their careers. We would encourage all LARIA members to consider the wide range of CPD activities that the MRS and other accredited organisations provide.

LARIA itself has developed the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for local researchers, which is incorporated into our conference programme and we will be developing further this year. We are looking to ensure that all local researchers, and the organisations they work for, are able to undertake CPD activities.

We would like to thank the MRS for the accreditation as it is a validation of the training opportunities provided by our conference and other events. We look forward to continued close working relationship with the MRS, who have been very supportive of LARIA over the years, and welcoming their members to our conference.

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If you receive an email to renew your membership please complete it quickly. If you do not keep up your subscription you will be removed from our mailing lists.

Click here to visit our membership area now to ensure that your details are up-to-date.

If you are not a member please click here to find out more about joining.

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Please click here to view the LARIA Charter

Photo: Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland. LARIA Photo. Click here to see more.

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We are particularly keen on receiving articles from members. This could just be a couple of lines linking to an interesting article somewhere else or feel free to write something. If you want some help and guidance just drop us an email.

Also we need LARIA members to collect and upload pictures of their local areas, people and places. We have set up a Flickr page to give you some ideas and want to use the website to showcase local areas. Naturally we would hope our pictures to reflect the content of the articles so it would be great if you could illustrate something about research, or a potential subject for some research, in your photos.

Finally, and by no means least, we need your help in testing the accesibility of this website. We are working on our accessibility statement and would like to hear from members on any issues they encounter. The website should be fully responsive on mobile and all major browsers. We are aware that some in the public sector use very old versions of internet browsers so if you encounter a problem please tell us which version you are using!

Thanks,

The LARIA web team – Alicia, Hannah and Neil

Photo credit: ZeLIG Admission Exam taken by ZeLIG School

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I think the regional network has been one of the key successes of the last year. With no budget a band of pioneers have volunteered their time and have arranged a number of activities. I have seen regional newsletters, free networking events and thoughtful activity on our online Knowledge Hub forum. Volunteers are at the heart of LARIA and I would encourage all LARIA members to be one. I want the regional network to be the heart of LARIA and it will increasingly be the place where innovation in research and intelligence occurs in this country. This can only be the case if we have active members supporting each other.

LARIA keeps our subscriptions incredibly low for a membership organisation. £80 will buy everyone in an organisation membership. The conference is fantastic value. We shifted our membership renewals and all transactions online and we are now one of the most technologically advanced subscriptions-based organisations in the country. If you are not a member click here and subscribe now. We have kept our free level of membership to keep in touch with the latest LARIA news but our challenge over the next year will be to further develop our improved offer to our paid members. We recognise that we cannot take paid membership for granted and would welcome ideas on how we can improve our offer.

You can support others by volunteering within your region or at a national level. We need volunteers in particular in the East Midlands and North East. We have merged with BURISA earlier in the year and we will be establishing a BURISA activity group looking in depth at the use and management of information and the development of information systems. If you are interested in big data, segmentation and the census then you are interested in BURISA and please help to take this forward. Please email me via admin@laria.gov.uk if you want to get involved.

Through our new links with BURISA we have also developed more contacts with statistics user groups. Official statistics are key to the work of LARIA members, and over the last decade we have seen a huge increase in the availability of information at the local level. I would like to mention that StatsUserNet has been created as an online forum for users and producers to engage with each other. It is supported by the Government Statistical Service (GSS), UK Statistics Authority, the Royal Statistical Society and the Statistics User Forum.

We are also expanding our network to organisations other than local authorities. We cover all local area research and you will see that at this conference. In particular we have worked this hard to bring in our health colleagues. Another network that is establishing itself is the Innovation in Collaboration initiative, being launched by the Peoplematters Network, which will help facilitate collaboration between researchers across the country. By encouraging researchers to work together online we are convinced they can collaboratively produce fantastic research with impact. Many of our members will have taken part in the Peoplematters Network survey that we have been supporting. This is the third year of the survey and there is still time to take part. Interim findings show the top priorities for members. The top three are that we need to raise the profile of the research and intelligence profession (69%), help develop research skills (60%) and provide free networking events with other researchers (58%).

I’ve therefore been working backwards through the priorities. The local regions and our online networks will hopefully provide the free networking events people want. In terms of raising skills we give you the National Occupational Standards, or NOS, developed with Skills for Justice. The NOS sets out for the first time the skills we think a local authority researcher needs, and by default this applies to researchers in other local area sectors. We see research as a profession and I would ask you to use the NOS to challenge yourself and your team to think beyond your methodological confines. I often describe myself as a pollster in my work at Westminster City Council, looking at residents’ surveys and the like, but in future I should work out what I need to be a researcher in the fullest sense of the word. This is particularly vital as I’m convinced the best in research is when we look across disciplines – combining techniques and maximising effectiveness. I will be looking for future LARIA events and activities to work using the NOS as a framework so we can support your professional development.

But as mentioned the highest priority from members is to raise the profile of the research and intelligence profession. We have in the last few years tried to do this by moving LARIA from being simply a best practice network of researchers to LARIA building on this by advocating the role of research and intelligence in the decision-making process.

As part of this I was kindly invited to speak at the SOLACE Summit in October to talk in a session led by the Alliance for Useful Evidence. Both organisations have been highly supportive of LARIA over the last year. At the summit we discussed the findings of a SOLACE member survey which I can share here today. Four in five (81%) SOLACE members think it is very important for local authorities to have robust evidence in making decision. But, only half (52%) of SOLACE members are satisfied with the way their decisions are informed by research and intelligence. Furthermore only half (48%) think they make evidence based decisions most of the time, including only 4% who think they do it all of the time. We need to help them. The demand is there but for some reason, as we will discuss in a moment, the cut-through of what we are doing is in part lacking.

The LARIA research impact awards are one of our efforts to help raise the profile of the research and intelligence profession and address this gap. The award winning case studies we will publish afterwards will show how research has made a difference to the people we serve.

I would encourage all members to think about the impact of the work they do and drop us a line about it. You don’t have to wait until next year’s awards. We are happy to help you by putting up blog posts on our website, supporting events you may wish to organise, commission research you think needs to be done or get you in contact with the people you need to bend the ear of in government or elsewhere. LARIA is what you make it – so challenge us on the Council and in the regional network to do more. In return we will provide you with the support you need to develop your ideas.

This text is adapted from the opening address to the LARIA Conference 2013 on 13th May 2013 in Manchester.

Photo credit: Neil Wholey, Chair of LARIA at LARIA Conference 2013 in Manchester taken by G1-di (Global1-Digital Images)

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