This Friday, Healthwatch Essex are celebrating #Red4Research, an annual awareness day that champions the positive impact of research in health, care, and voluntary sectors. In recognition of #Red4Research, our team have shared how they engage with research in their roles.
Here at Healthwatch Essex, research is something we all contribute to in diverse and meaningful ways. Our engagement in research is a strong reminder that research is not confined to labs or academic journals. Some of the ways we do research includes designing studies, capturing people’s stories through surveys and interviews, analysing data and supporting participants.
#Red4Research Day gives us the chance to reflect on the great research we conduct at Healthwatch Essex and celebrate the impact our research has. As such, our team have provided a short reflection of what research means in their roles:
‘In my role as CEO, I use research every day. Often this is the information gathered via our research engagement and outreach teams. This enables me to add value and an evidence base to conversations in strategic level meetings. It adds validity to conversations with our wide variety of stakeholders and enables us to link together stories from the citizens I speak to identify teams
What we do really well at Healthwatch Essex is capture qualitative evidence bases which enables me to add value and understanding to exiting data sets. It adds the ‘Why’ to the challenges we are facing rather than just ‘What’ the problem is.
As a lifelong learner, I use research as a tool to understand. My undergraduate degree and masters degree both allowed me to carry out qualitative research around health which fascinated me and create more questions than answers. I have recently completed a dissertation project for an MBA with the university of Suffolk looking at the commissioning of charities to deliver health and social care activity. I enjoyed this research so much I have applied to study it further as a PHD’ – Sam Glover (CEO)
‘As Office Administrator, I regularly review and organise feedback from our events to help us understand what worked well and where we can improve. I also use research when developing staff inductions, making sure new starters have the best and most up-to-date information to feel confident in their roles. I enjoy using research to make everyday processes better for both our team and the people we work with!’ – Grace Caston (Office Administrator)
‘Research is at the heart of everything we do, from guiding our projects, highlighting lived experiences, and ensuring that community voices are heard. Our research takes many shapes and forms, from traditional methods such as background investigations and literature reviews on health and social care topics, to collecting feedback through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, and analysing data to uncover patterns and trends. We also conduct research in the field through community engagement, networking, service mapping, and staying up to date with current events and the actions of key decision-makers. Research is essential not only for deepening our understanding, but for driving meaningful change in the communities we serve’. – Lily Boag (Project Officer)
‘For Carers Voices our research would be keeping up to date with resources available for unpaid carers and their cared for, through regular meetings with our partner organisations, neighbourhood meetings and any updates sent through via E.C.C.
The team make it our mission to find a service that a carer may need in their locality which makes an overall difference to them and the cared for and possibly wider family members.
We also make referrals into support organisations which understandably makes a huge difference to their lives and that of the cared for. An example: a carer referred for a care needs assessment with Adult Social Care which helps determine if any help is needed with daily living tasks, physical and mental health, mobility, and personal care. Then any suitable support is recommended which improves overall wellbeing for the carer and subsequently the carer for’. – Jane Stokes (Carers Voices Officer)
‘Good quality evidence-based care, effective public health initiatives and policy advocacy is built upon a foundation of high-quality research. This is why working as a researcher is so endlessly fascinating and vital for improved individual, community, and population-level health. I simply love public health, advocacy and research!’. – Lorna Orriss-Dib (Research Officer)
‘Conducting research has made me a better person. Our participants are always so generous in giving up their time to share their reflections with us. Through my research, I have learnt so much about the diversity of people’s lives and the strength and resilience that individuals enact every single day. It always feels like a privilege to hear about people’s lives. This motivates me to champion their lived experiences to support positive changes to health and care services across Essex’ – Dr Kate Mahoney (Research Manager)
‘I’ve always had a real interest in Research as it fulfils the part of my brain that loves to learn and explore new ideas! For me, research is all about curiosity, discovery and generating change.
As a Research Officer, I have the privilege of immersing myself in a wide range of health and social care topics, hear people’s stories and share their lived experience with services to facilitate positive change. Each project is an opportunity to expand my knowledge and engage with complex themes that people experience each day. On top of my love for numbers and quantitative research, one of the most rewarding aspects of my role is listening to people’s lived experience. It reminds me that behind every statistic is an individuals’ story, and we have the opportunity to share these stories to instigate change.’. – Beth Pittuck (Research Officer)
‘As part of my role, I speak with many people about a wide range of topics, and qualitative research can transform those individual, deeply personal stories into collective evidence that can drive meaningful change. By engaging with a diverse range of groups and individuals about their lived experiences on services ranging across the health and social care world, it ensures that their voices are heard, understood, and meaningfully represented. Those conversations also help identify common themes, uncover systemic issues that may exist, and highlight areas in need of improvement. When reports and recommendations are reinforced with real human experiences, qualitative research makes it more likely that policies and practices will evolve in ways that genuinely improve lives of those they will impact. I will never forget some of the stories I’ve heard and the people I’ve met along my journey as an engagement officer. If their words can leave a lasting impact on me, I believe they can inspire change in others too’. – Luke Weall (Engagement Officer)
‘The way I use research within my role is firstly mapping or scoping an area for assets – I find this an interesting part of the process. Gathering direct feedback in the form of interviews and focus groups enables me to find out what is important to people and without this research – of finding out what matters to people – we would struggle to help shape services that best serve a community. #researchrocks. – Mel Archer (Engagement Officer)
“My role involves promoting all of the research the rest of the team does – making it accessible for social media, producing inclusive outputs such as posters and films, and preparing the reports for publishing. I love seeing the variety of topics we cover at Healthwatch Essex, and I have learnt a lot in this role.” – Chloe Dench (Communications Manager)
“When researching at university, it helps me apply what I have learnt into my role at Healthwatch Essex, whether it’s learning about a new practical skill, a new theory, or general marketing knowledge. When I have a university assignment, I do a lot of research into the content that is being taught to me in my marketing module and how I can best improve my skills in my marketing apprenticeship. I very much enjoy researching as it’s easy to navigate and collect data, helping me progress in university and at work.” – Alicia Johnson (Digital Marketing Apprentice)
“Research is useful to me to help look deeper into topics for my university work, allowing me to develop a more accurate and informed understanding of the assignments I complete. I love that it enables me to find out information about theories and concepts that go beyond our normal learning, which helps me progress further.” – Max Jones (Digital Marketing Apprentice)
These reflections highlight the pivotal role that research plays within our teams at Healthwatch Essex. It not only informs our daily practices but also enables us to capture lived experiences and influence policies and decision-making across the health and social care sector. We remain committed to embedding research in our work and make a meaningful contribution throughout Essex.