Latest news
Midwifery research reaches a royal audience
Dr Hora Soltani rubbed shoulders with royalty earlier this year when she
was invited to speak at a conference celebrating the International Day
of the Midwife in London.
The conference, 'Celebrating midwives: celebrating achievements', was organised by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and brought together leading figures from the sector to present achievements, study findings and debate topics. Hora addressed the audience on the beneficial effects of midwifery-led care in reducing interventional birth, how choices of mode of birth vary across the globe and the factors influencing it. Contrasting experiences and statistics across the different continents, she highlighted issues of choice using the high rates of caesarean section present in Latin America when compared to Europe, where midwifery-led care is more available.
Following her presentation Hora was one of a select number of speakers
invited to meet with guest of honour and patron of the RCM, HRH The Princess
Royal. Other invited guests included Liz Stephens - the president of the
RCM, Frances Day-Stirk - director of RCM Learning, Research and Practice
Development, and Professor Diane Fraser of the University of Nottingham.
Hora's talk was very well received and she has been invited to lead a session at the next RCM national conference in November.
New report
Geoff Green, Emeritus professor of urban policy, has recently published a report highlighting how the benefits of improving the housing stock in the City of Leeds are much greater than the cost. Investing in warmth, safety and security lead to improvements in health and reduce the costs of the NHS and criminal justice system.
> Download Better Housing, Better Health in Leeds: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Improving Living Conditions (PDF 802KB).
Conference presentations
Mubarak Ishmail has recently presented at two conferences. The first was entitled 'Tackling TB together: a community participatory study of the socio-cultural factors influencing an understanding of TB within the Somali community in Sheffield'. This was presented to the NICE Program Development Group ('Identifying and managing tuberculosis among hard to reach groups').
The second was on the theme of methodological innovation at the Manchester Conference Centre. The title of his presentation was 'Researching ethnicity: what, why and how? The challenges and contributions of working with community researchers'.
Stephen May presented at the Chronic Pain Management Second National Conference in London, January 2011. His paper was on 'Evidence base for the role of exercise in low back pain management'.
Dr Angela Tod attended the British Thoracic Oncology Group Annual Conference 26-28 January 2011 where she chaired a research interest group meeting. Angela was also awarded a prize for a poster with Clare Warnock from Weston Park Hospital. The poster addressed the theme 'Evaluating the care and experiences of patients with spinal cord compression'.
News from CHSCR staff
The Centre's Sarah Salway and Punita Chowbey presented a paper at the fourth workshop in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Innovation and Capacity Development in Research in Ethnicity series. The workshop theme was 'mixed methods approaches' and the paper was titled 'Working with and against ethnic categories: contributions of a mixed methods approach'.
The event was held at the Workstation on 9 November and around 50 participants attended from across the country.
Peter Allmark, Sarah Salway and Hilary Piercy coordinated an evidence review conducted for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Commission has a statutory duty to publish a triennial review of the state of inequality in the UK; the Centre won the bid to write the evidence reviews relating to Life and to Health. These are now published on their website as a monograph.
In addition the monograph was drawn on extensively for the Equality and Human Rights Commission's first triennial review. This is a report required by statute and used by Government departments.
Peter Allmark and Sarah Salway won the bid to conduct an evidence synthesis for the Pension, Disabilities and Carer Service (PDCS) of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); this is published on the DWP website. The topic is ethnic minority customers of the PDCS focusing in particular on sources of dissatisfaction for those customers.
Peter Allmark has won a small grant from Rotherham NHS to perform an evidence synthesis looking at distal determinants of public health, particularly the effect of welfare benefit and benefits advice on health. The work will be used to inform decisions about public health policy and spending in Rotherham.
Academic presents papers at Santiago congress
Nick Pollard recently attended the World Federation of Occupational Therapists congress in Santiago, Chile, and presented two papers. The first was Communities, Occupations and Narratives, which considered whether the concept of 'occupation' in occupational therapy correlates with a classed notion of occupation. The paper also compared the technical understanding of occupation in a clinical sense with the narrative of working class occupation from a community publishing perspective.
The second paper that Nick presented, Online Module on a Political Practice of Occupational Therapy (Sakellariou D, Pollard N, Leech S, Frank G, Kasnitz D (2010)) describes some of the issues of engaging with an online module for students engaging in international fieldwork. The paper also discusses whether this is a medium that facilitates the transferability of a political 'competence' of occupational therapy.
Evaluating a Model of Primary Care
Along with Sarah Cook and Andrew Garth, Nick Pollard has just completed an evaluation of a model of primary care - voluntary sector partnership working between Pitsmoor Surgery, the Primary Mental Health Care Project and SAGE Greenfingers.
The project was funded though NHS Sheffield Innovations in Compassionate Care and was concerned with the needs of people with enduring mental health issues in the community. The project looked at providing local, low key forms of support to prevent relapse and deterioration amongst people who are often challenged in engaging with statutory services.
Sarah Salway chairs a session at the ESRC Innovation Network
Sarah Salway recently chaired a session at the first workshop of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Innovation Network.
The session was titled Researching Ethnicity, and was held at the University of Essex.
Hora Soltani speaks at Food Standards Agency workshop
In May, Hora Soltani was an invited speaker at the Food Standard Agency Research Workshop in Crewe, in collaboration with the University of Leeds.
Hora spoke about population-based pharmacokinetics in developing a virtual pregnancy model to assess the disposition of caffeine during pregnancy.
Health and Social Care researcher shares his knowledge
In October Mark Doel shared his social work expertise by giving research seminars at Lund University, Sweden, as part of the social work Erasmus network.
The seminars relate to a research project based on the 'Professional Boundaries' project that some Research Centre and social work team members conducted earlier in the year. There is also interest in the project from Lithuania, where the main instrument has been translated into Lithuanian - offering an opportunity for cross-national comparisons of the ways in which social workers define their professional boundaries.
Mark also gave the keynote at Norfolk County Council's annual Practice Education Conference. This consisted of the findings from research projects that have been completed in the Research Centre over the last couple of years in the area of practice education. Mark also led a plenary workshop in a model of practice education called 'Live Teaching' using video and small group rehearsal.
The conference was for Norfolk's practice educators in Adult Services, Children's Services and across the voluntary and independent sector. It is one of the few occasions when people from across these sectors come together.
Book on social work placements published
Mark Doel's latest book, 'Social Work Placements: a traveller's guide', will be published in November 2009 by Routledge. It aims to make all the research findings in social work practice learning over the last few years accessible to students and practitioners, by using an extended 'Rough Guide' metaphor - with 'Socialworkland' as the traveller's destination.
Mark is currently working on the website that will accompany the book and which will host illustrative material that expands upon the content of the book.
Researcher's work used to produce a film
Angela Tod's research, conducted with NHS Rotherham and NHS Doncaster, has been used to develop a film on lung cancer.
The film, part of a series called 'Spotting Cancer Early', has been developed by Cancer Research UK and is now being aired through a host of media including Freeview and in GP surgeries on The Life Channel. The series is targeted at over 50s and tackles bowel, mouth, breast and lung cancers, in support of the National Awareness and Early Diagnosis Initiative (NAEDI).
The films are available to view online at www.spotcancerearly.com.
Funding success for research into maternal health care
Sarah Salway, in collaboration with a Canadian colleague Dr Zubia Mumtaz of the University of Alberta, has recently been successful in winning funding from the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
The project, titled 'Addressing Disparities in Maternal Health Care in Pakistan: Gender, Class and Exclusion' has wonfunding of approximately $450,000.
Keeping Warm in Later Life project receives funding
The project, Keeping Warm in Later Life (KWILLT) with Rotherham PCT, has received confirmation of funding from the Research for Patient Benefit Programme.
Confirmation was received from the National Institute for Health Research for £240,000 funding for the 26 month-long project. The funding will go to Rotherham PCT, with the Centre for Health and Social Care's Angela Tod set to work on the project one day per week. The start date is set for October 2009.
Professor gives keynote address on groupwork practice
Professor Mark Doel gave a major keynote address on groupwork practice in Chicago in June.
Speaking to the 31st annual symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups (AASWG), Mark stood alongside colleagues from the US, Malaysia, Jamaica and Ireland to report on an international research project titled 'Global Groupwork'.
The project investigated the commonalities and specifics of groupwork practice across cultures and nations. They are currently seeking funding to continue the research.
Sustaining practice learning address
The 'Innovative Models of Practice Learning' conference in Sheffield invited Professor Mark Doel to report and disseminate research conducted over the last year into 'sustaining practice learning' - how innovations survive and embed themselves.
Latest edition published - 'Educating Professionals: Practice Learning in Health and Social Care'
Professor Mark Doel's latest edited collection is out now. 'Educating Professionals: Practice Learning in Health and Social Care' (eds Doel, M. Shardlow, S.M.), published by Ashgate, contains chapters by contributors from nine different health and social care settings. Each presents the way practice education is conceptualised, organised, delivered and assessed in their own profession and uses a 'virtual community' as a common reference point in which all of the students from the different professions are placed.
Visit Mark's staff page for full details of his recent publications.
Keynote address on survivorship issues
Nick Pollard recently delivered a keynote address in June at the HIV/AIDS, Oncology, and Palliative Care Annual Conference at the Brighton Centre. The address was titled 'Survivorship issues: the right to engagement and occupation' (Pollard N, Sakellariou D.)
Nick also attended the College of Occupational Therapy 33rd annual conference and exhibition, also held at the Brighton Centre. His paper, Lawson-Porter A, Pollard N, Sakellariou D (2009) asked the question 'Will occupational science facilitate or divide the practice of occupational therapy?'
Sheffield Hallam University is not responsible for the content of external websites
