Skills for Care have announced that they will be partnering with the University of Birmingham to develop a new centre for adult social care.
The aim of the new IMPACT (Improving Adult Care Together) centre, which will be the first of its kind in the UK, is to put evidence into practice in order to promote and maintain people’s independence and wellbeing.
The centre will receive £15 million of funding over the next 6 years from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, and the Health Foundation.
Skills for Care and the University of Birmingham join a broader consortium of key stakeholders from across all four nations of the UK in order to develop the new IMPACT centre which will focus on:
- Leading the way in helping people working in adult social care, carers, and the people they support to make better use of high-quality, practice-based evidence to support innovation in adult social care
- Building capacity and skills within the adult social care workforce
- Developing sustainable and productive relationships between all of those working across adult social care
- Improving our understanding of what helps or hinders when putting evidence into practice
Skills for Care will be part of the leadership team for the new centre and will work with a wide range of academic, policy and practice partners as well as people who have lived experience of using social care services in order to help develop and lead a programme of innovation and improvement across the sector.
The IMPACT centre will benefit from good practice examples and robust evidence from several different sources across the UK, including unpaid carers, adult social care workers and providers, experts in mobilisation and implementation of evidence, commissioners and policy experts and academic teams.
The IMPACT team will be responsible for agreeing priorities and designing, establishing, delivering and evaluating the Centre’s work programme, which is designed to lead to sustainable change in the way evidence is used within the sector.
Jon Glasby, Professor of Health and Social Care at the University of Birmingham, appointed as IMPACT’s Director, said:
“Adult social care touches people’s lives in such important and intimate ways, and it’s crucial that it’s based on the best possible evidence of what works.
“Good care isn’t just about services; it’s about having a life – and the ESRC and the Health Foundation are providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a real difference.”
Meanwhile, the Programme Head for Workforce Innovation at Skills for Care, Jim Thomas, commented:
“Skills for Care is proud to be part of the sector-led partnership that created the IMPACT centre announced today.
“This centre is the first of its kind committed to putting evidence into practice to promote and maintain people’s independence and wellbeing.
“As part of the impact’s leadership team, we will be working closely to support employees to use the impact centres to work to improve workforce development opportunities. We will work closely with our partners in Skills for Care and Development to embed learning across the UK.”
First Response Training (FRT) is a leading, national training provider. They deliver over 7,000 courses each year in the fields of health and safety, first aid, fire safety, food hygiene, mental health, health and social care and more.
Their health and social care range includes Moving and Assisting, Person Centred Care, Dignity in Care, Duty of Care, Safeguarding Adults and many more.
A trainer from FRT says: “It’s fantastic that this new centre is in development which will help care workers and providers to learn from good practice and put evidence-based research into practice to help improve outcomes for people using services.”
For more information on the training that FRT can provide, please call them today on freephone 0800 310 2300 or send an e-mail to info@firstresponsetraining.com.