The 3rd ISEEP Policy Seminar ‘Building Better Children’s Services through Collaborative Research’ took place at the Learning Centre, University of Birmingham, on 9 May 2005. This focus reflected the new context of Children’s Services and the related importance of regional collaboration across a wide range of stakeholders (including national policy makers, LEAs, schools, colleges and universities). 

The seminar opened with a presentation from Eileen Visser (OFSTED) about the twin importance of regional partnerships and organisations’ self-evaluation. Eileen talked about these in the light of OFSTED’s new role, structures and inspection arrangements.  

The strategy of partnership between LEAs and the University is clearly a powerful approach to developing collaborative research in innovative and effective ways. Two of the speakers, Professor Saul Becker and Professor Gary Thomas (new or imminent appointments to the University and both with specialist interests in this field) spoke about novel approaches they have developed with various regional bodies in developing evidence-informed policy.

These presentations led into small group discussions around the issues and setting of an agenda for future collaboration.

Moving forward together.

Eileen Visser provided a useful background to the morning’s discussions by her presentation: The new context: a view from OFSTED. Then, with examples of services and university staff collaborating in research projects (Gary Thomas) and how an idea developed first into a small-scale project then hit the national scene and began to influence policy (Saul Becker) fresh in their minds, delegates broke into groups to discuss practical ways of moving forward.

There were specific suggestions for the ISEEP division:

• Disseminate information to schools, services and voluntary organisations on what ISEEP can offer, with costings and details of research interests (BPS fortnightly digests were offered as an example).
• Appoint one person as a point of focus for joint activity between ISEEP and schools, services, LEAs and voluntary organisation.
• Researchers need to understand the changing context and the systems in which practitioners are working and to look for participatory and ‘bottom up’ approaches to working. Changing contexts could be a fruitful area for research.
• University researchers need to be open and transparent about their own agendas and the extent to which they are driven by RAE considerations and the need to publish.
• Language and dissemination of research needs to be clear and accessible in a way that practitioners can understand. Bear in mind that the voluntary sector and charities can help in dissemination.
• Utilise the University of Birmingham as a venue for a forum of practitioners working within schools. The group would be encouraged to discuss a broader research perspective, that would be pertinent and relevant but not necessarily subject specific. This may well be an appropriate step as many schools were themselves developing an ‘out-reach’ function and in this role were already disseminating results to a wider audience.
• University staff should look for opportunities to become more involved in local (i.e. Birmingham/West Midlands) education for a. Examples were given of UoB staff currently involved in Heads of Services meetings in the West Midlands There is a potential for greater collaboration due to the close geographical proximity of the LEA and the University. This may be a useful route for longer-term funding
• Are there any formalised links relating to SEN in West Midlands? There are some links but these tend to be disability specific. Perhaps someone from ISEEP should be involved in developing such links?

There were broader suggestions intended to encourage more engagement with research by staff in schools and services and more joint initiatives:

• There are lots of things going on in schools that have research elements. It may be experiential and may not be rigorous but schools are sitting on a lot of data. Researchers could be  collecting that data, synthesising this experiential knowledge and looking at implications for training. One possible model is to recognise and nurture small school-based interventions that are implemented and evaluated in schools and to move from that to the bigger overview and then back to action research and small-scale projects
• LEAs could encourage more shared costs and common agendas between schools and between LEAs Regional partnerships could play a key role in ‘brokering collaboration.’
• Models for collaboration in social care could be useful in education. Two of these models are entitled “ Research into Practice” and Making research count”. Local authorities get together and all pay a subscription to buy into a collaborative network. Researchers conduct the same research for all. This is disseminated through newsletters, website and seminars. As a University, we need to look at more models such as these because we can provide the capacity to provide this kind of research. It was recognised that these types of partnerships should then also link carefully to training and development
• Funding other than the standards fund (stops next year) could be used creatively for funding collaborative research initiatives. The example of the Essex TA project (Gary Thomas) was cited as a good example of this.
• Multi agency working when agencies might have competing targets and work to different models could be a topic to pursue for joint research.
• Research evidence to underpin decisions, for example some colleagues were being asked to work in a ‘hot desk’ situation and wondered whether there was research evidence to support this model.

The discussions highlighted some general points in relation to our agenda:

• There is a danger that research might focus on what can be measured and in so doing miss key factors that make a difference to children and families. We need to consider what counts as success and the values on which this is based.

We need to consider how research agendas are set and by whom – there is a greater need to involve those in the classrooms in this.

With thanks to the group convenors and scribes