Strengths-based approaches in social care and community services
From October 2024 to March 2026, our work continues to focus on strengths-based approaches in social care and community services. We are researching the preventive role of at-home support services, developing involvement and engagement within the social care sector and supporting social care research capacity development. We are also identifying new research priorities for future work.
We continue to organise the Home Care Research Forum, the Margaret Butterworth Care Home Forum and the Day Centre Research Forum.
Preventive Role of social care for Older People: triggers, judgement calls and processes (the PROP study)
Project lead: Dr Kritika Samsi.
Team: Dr Katharine Orellana, Dr Monica Leverton, Dr Antonina Semkina
The PROP study focuses on the contribution of social care services in monitoring and maintaining the physical, cognitive and mental health and well-being of older users of adult social care services who live alone in their own homes.
Health and wellbeing monitoring is often routinely done by people working and volunteering in services. We will be finding out what triggers staff and volunteers to act when they notice something out of the ordinary and what they do next. We will also be finding out how useful this work is for people working elsewhere in social care and the NHS.
Involvement and engagement work
We are continuing our social care sector engagement, identifying new groups in south London to invite to become involved in research and building on the strong relationships we already have, and continue our involvement in local initiatives, our training and dissemination formats, ongoing seminar series and forums, and with local and national stakeholders.
Dementia Community Research Network (DCRN)
We co-lead the DCRN which aims to improve care for all people affected by dementia by giving opportunities for people of all backgrounds and ethnicities to be involved in research. Read more about the DCRN. Project leads: Dr Olivia Luijnenburg and Dr Lesley Williamson, with Dr Annabel Farnood.
Building social care research capacity
We continue to support social care research capacity development in south London across the career pathway, from early-career to research leaders. We are also actively supporting social care practitioners’ involvement in research through the Social Care Capacity Building Programme.
NIHR Dementia Research Programme (Dem-Comm)
Dr Leverton and Dr Williamson are dementia post-doctoral fellows as part of the NIHR Dem-Comm programme, building research capacity in palliative and social care for people living with dementia through two interventions.
Future Workforce: A VR Journey into Dementia Care
Dr Luijnenburg and colleagues are developing a Virtual Reality tool for young people and retail workers to demonstrate the challenges people living with dementia might face in a supermarket scenario. The tool will aid in creating better awareness of a dementia friendly community and will inform users around what steps can be taken to support people living with dementia. Manjot Brar is supporting her on this project as her intern.
Spirituality in residential care for people living with dementia: implementing reflective tools for care workers of people living with dementia (SpiritDem)
Dr Luijnenburg is co-designing a validated tool with family carers, to support care, decision-making and access to services. Manjot Brar is supporting this work. Read more about this work.
Using routine data to understand and improve health and social care for people with dementia near the end of life
Dr Williamson is leading and supporting multiple studies that focus on improving care for people living and dying with dementia. This includes: 1) developing a profile of ‘Dying Well’ metrics that draw on currently available health and social care routine data and what is considered most meaningful to people affected by dementia; 2) understanding the extent to which palliative care is prioritised in local dementia strategies; 3) collaborating with colleagues from the University of Plymouth to scope opportunities to advance post-diagnostic support; 4) collaborating with international colleagues to understand factors that influence evidence use in policy and practice in health and social care and dementia care specifically. Lesley is drawing on this work to explore if and how integrated palliative dementia care can feasibly facilitate routine follow-up care for people affected by dementia. Lesley jointly coordinates the Dementia Community Research Network and is a member of the EMPOWER Dementia Network Plus and Impact Centre in Palliative and End-of-Life Care working group.
Review of Occupational Health and well-being service provision for the South London Local Authorities’ employees (OHLA)
Dr Semkina is conducting a study that aims to explore well-being and occupational health service arrangements available to the employees of the LAs in South London. The research is done through document analysis of relevant organisational websites and records and reflects public contributors’ perspective. More information is here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/ohla.
Academic teaching
Education roles include Dr Samsi co-leading the Service Development and Delivery module on the MSc Health and Social Care Policy offered by The Policy Institute to staff of the Department of Health and Social Care; and all team members ad hoc lecturing about qualitative research methods on Master’s programmes.
SC-ImpRes: A practical guide to designing and conducting implementation research in social care was launched in February 2025.
The practical guide aims to support social care researchers to design high-quality implementation research. The project is a collaboration between Social Care and Implementation Science themes, led by Antonina Semkina and Louise Hull. Social care theme experts were part of the advisory panel and provided specialist comments on adaptation of the original tool developed to support healthcare implementation research to a social care context throughout the project. Key changes include:
- clarifying the distinction between research of 'the thing being implemented' and research on its implementation
- indicating flexibility in using implementation theories and research methods for social care implementation research purposes
- using more relevant language
- including social care-related imagery.
The SC-ImpRes practical guide contains eight domains: Characteristics of The Thing Being Implemented; Your implementation study; Stakeholder engagement in implementation research; Implementation theories, models and frameworks; Implementation determinants; Implementation strategies; Outcomes of The Thing Being Implemented; and Implementation outcomes.
See more information about the tool here.
This work was led by Dr Semkina with Dr Louise Hull (Implementation Science Theme). Dr Orellana was a member of the expert panel.
Methodological work
Expanding knowledge of research methodologies and design is vital to strengthening social care research.
Dr Luijnenburg co-organises a Methods Club for staff at The Policy Institute to broaden their knowledge of research methods through experience- and expertise-sharing.
Identifying new research priorities
Looking to the future, we will identify new research priorities by continuing the agile responsive approach of our theme, through thriving collaborations and sector-wide engagement with social care practitioners, staff in local authorities, and members of Integrated Care Boards, and respond to these in a timely and rigorous manner.
Project Team
In addition to the researchers below the team includes Manjot Brar and Nurul Ahmad Nizam.