Making Research Count

Lead university staff
Dr Donald Forrester
donald.forrester@beds.ac.uk

Coordinator: Jo Neale
jo.neale@beds.ac.uk

Administrator: Cara Senouni
cara.senouni@beds.ac.uk

Members
Bedfordshire County Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Luton Borough Council, London Borough of Barnet, London Borough of Brent, London Borough of Enfield, London Borough of Islington, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Swan Fostering.

Regional approach
MRC Bedfordshire delivers a programme of conferences and practice development seminars, which provide agencies with the opportunity to meet and discuss latest thinking and findings with key researchers in important areas of practice. During these events, information and knowledge is shared across local authorities, in an informal yet stimulating environment that is conducive to learning.

The initiative works across children and adults services in a number of the agencies. The University of Bedfordshire project has emphasised the three levels of involvement with Making Research Count and see members gaining from the connection between all three levels, the local, regional and national.

MRC Bedfordshire strives to be responsive to the demands of its member agencies. It has established a Partnership Forum made up of member agencies’ training leads and MRC staff, which meets quarterly to evaluate the impact of past activities and steer the development of the programme. Most importantly, MRC liaises with training leads in individual authorities, where locally based and relevant “bespoke” programmes of work are designed and delivered. This allows us to meet the needs of a range of different member organisations. These individually tailored programmes include team days, research dissemination seminars, journal clubs, research support, information and advice, and a research sign posting service.

Partnership with King’s College London
University of Bedfordshire has formed a partnership with the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s College London to provide an extensive range of shared events across both regions. These include:

• Policy forums, where managers of social work and social care practice can come together to hear from leaders in the field of research, practice and service user involvement, and;
• Practice development events, where people can explore specific topics in more detail and apply research findings directly to policy and practice.

The university department in which the regional programme has been developed:
Making Research Count Bedfordshire is located within the Institute for Applied Social Research, which is part of the Department of Applied Social Studies. This department provides pre and post qualifying training to social workers and also qualifying training to other professional groups such as youth workers. The department has an international reputation for research, and this has formed the framework for the development of Making Research Count within the region.

Website
Information about Making Research Count at University of Bedfordshire, including its current programme of events, is available at:
www.beds.ac.uk/research/iasr/mrc