The INCLUDE ME Project: reporting on the development of a tool to appraise social inclusion – delivered by service users and carers

Speakers today: Genevieve Riley; Sue Hitchcock; Alison Lott

Project Team: Helen Guy; Irene Philpott; Ben Watkinson; Susie Wild

What are we going to talk about?

•How the project came about

•Process of developing the INCLUDE ME Tool.

•Whose perspective?

2

3

Who commissioned us?In May 2008 the Service User & Carer Research Group tendered to NSIP (National Social Inclusion Programme) for a grant to produce a tool for use by carers & service users that would assess social inclusion standards within organisations.

The project was to be delivered by service users & carers. It ran from September 2008 – March 2009.

Capabilities for Inclusive Practice –

Department of Health, National Social Inclusion Programme, 2007.

4

How long did we have?

• 6 Months!

• Realistic expectations.

• We agreed with NSIP what we could achieve.

• Concentrate on creating the tool and consultation on the

important aspects of socially inclusive work.

5

The Project Team• Job description for the Service User / Carer Researcher

posts, outlining the commitment, expectations, and likely elements of the job.• Advertised through user/carer forums within the Trust

and through our Research Group.• We had lots of interest, and recruited 6 researchers.• Registered as volunteers with the 2gether NHS FT, given

ID badges and jointly acted a representatives of the Trust throughout the project.

6

The Project Team• Job description• Advertised through

PPI, Trust & user /carer forums• Lots of interest –

over 15 applications

04/20/23 11:15 PM 77

How were the project team supported?

• Link to support systems within the Trust to the project team.

• Staff ‘mentor’ (although this was hard to sustain).

• Library training- Athens and literature searching.

• Met in a relaxed informal environment, supported one another in

meetings, took regular breaks in meetings, broke down the work into

small chunks.

• Set ground rules for conduct in meetings.

8

9

Using Consensus Techniques

• Modified Delphi approach; a method of group

communication in a 2 rounds of questionnaire

• Panel members were mainly generated from the

2gether NHS FT membership database.

• Promoted the project locally to a variety of user & carer

forums with an interest in social inclusion work.

How did the team facilitate recruitment, the stakeholder process?• It was important to ask the right people about social

inclusion• We hosted a stakeholder lunch launching the event

locally.• Published the project in newsletters, including

Foundation Trust, user & carer forums, day centres.• The team each presented the project at the lunch, talking

about what was involved.• We had a questions & answers session.

10

11

What came from our Delphi Rounds

• 2 rounds of Delphi identified the two top priorities for

inclusive practice within each capability

• Translate to useful text in the tool

• Keeping it meaningful to users and carers

• Visually appealing

12

The creative process of designing the INCLUDE ME Tool

• Team members designed the tool logo.• We looked at other user / carer

tools for ideas.• We created mock designs

before choosing the final layout.• This is the final look of the tool

13

14

15

Where next?

• The tool first phase of designing the tool has now been

completed

• Pilot test & refine

• Launch nationally

• Work with NSIP’s successors to design phase 2 of the

project

16

Special thanks to Naomi Hankinson & David Gardener from NSIP for sponsoring this work

“I looked forward to our weekly meetings, as I am retired, and although I have plenty with

which to occupy myself, I looked forward to using my creativity and speaking out about the tool and

its content and format etc. There were some statements with which I felt about quite

passionately, and I was pleased these were incorporated into the tool.”

“Being involved with this project has made me challenge some of my preconceived ideas

about social inclusion, and think in much wider terms"

We've all worked really well together as a team and made new friendships, as well as learning new skills around

Research methods and processes”

“Everyone wants to belong and make friends, whether this is in social and leisure groups, at work or volunteering,. I hope the tool supports this ideal of social inclusion and puts this into practice and reality.”