social care services
The most trustworthy knowledge comes from systematic reviews where a whole body of work on a given topic is examined, using set ways of deciding what is relevant, how the quality of different studies should be judged and how the messages should be brought together. Looking at a whole body of work in this way means that there is less potential for the messages from research to be unduly affected by single studies.
Practice papers that summarise recent research on important issues pertinent to residential child care and which draw out possible practice applications.
A series of research summaries from projects undertaken by the Social Policy Research Unit. Topics include disabled children and young people, outcomes-focused social care services and older people.
A part of IRISS's Evidence Informed Practice Portal, the toolkit provides guidance on the process of finding and using evidence for service innovation and improvement. It has four steps designed to help users acquire, assess, adapt and apply evidence in practice, and involves a number of learning activities to help improve skills and confidence in these areas.
Provides accessible summaries of the most up-to-date, relevant evidence on key issues for policy and practice. Topics covered include employment for people with long-term mental health problems, direct payments for those using mental health services and effective involvement of older people in service planning, and effectiveness of support for adults with autistic spectrum disorder.
Resource designed to provide ready access to relevant policy, available evidence and emerging practice on topics of current importance. It addresses topics where the evidence base is currently less well-developed, but where practitioners and managers still need to access emerging evidence and information to help inform their practice. Themes include outcome-based commissioning and contracting, support brokerage, joint strategic needs assessment, and social firms.
Short reviews of research evidence, each answering a key question related to an aspect of current health and social care practice for adults. In answering the question authors summarise the available evidence and detail the key implications for practice.
A gateway to high-quality information and learning resources for social services professionals, service users and carers.
Specialist library of over 4,000 book titles and periodicals on residential child care and related fields. It is open to residential workers, managers, students, academics and others with an interest in the field of residential care for children and young people.
Website resource with links to the National Children's Bureau's free publications. It includes guides, reviews and toolkits on a wide variety of subjects.

