Developments and Planned Initiatives
A plan is underway to develop an ESRC bid (starting with a pilot proposal for funding from Alcohol charities) concerning the social work/social care response to older people with alcohol-related brain disease. The pilot will be developed over the next year with a full proposal in 2009.
The proposal by the Department of Health to develop national Social Care Research Ethics Committees as part of NRES, and possibly housed within the Social care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), lends itself to evaluative work concerning its operation and implementation. Work will continue from the existing proposal to examine and theorise the ‘policy implementation gap’ making suggestions for better policy guidance.
A proposal being developed alongside a studentship will seek charitable body funding to explore the factors involved in decisions to remove or not to remove children from families where there is abuse and neglect.
Local and regional enterprise evaluations will continue as a means of encouraging staff development, increasing enterprise income and developing work of a national and international calibre that will be promoted through high quality publications and international conferences proceedings.
A focus on specific calls from the Department of Health, SCIE, SWAP, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Nuffield Foundation will be maintained to ensure the centre maintains is developing position as a key player in the social work/social policy context. Planned research council initiatives will proceed by two means: firstly, specific calls that lead to collaborative multi-university bids in core areas (as outlined earlier), and secondly, by working with other school and university centres where staff expertise can be utilised.
There will be a continued emphasis on publication within high quality and high impact factor journals with an encouragement to disseminate also accessible, yet robust, work for practitioners within the professional press, thus ensuring the continued profile of Bournemouth University in making a positive difference in practice (see appendix 1 for a summary of research, scholarly and enterprise work mid 2006-end 2007). The latter strategy will also increase the potential for enterprise and education activities with key stakeholders in the social work and social policy communities.
