Solva Care RME Strategy
Download a copy of the current RME Strategy
Research, monitoring and evaluation programme
Solva Care is innovative project, and we have built in research and evaluation from the start to shape our activities, and gauge how well we are doing. If you are interested in hearing more about our plans, or getting involved, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
On this page there are links to projects and papers produced by Solva Care, by other organisations about Solva Care, as well as other relevant material by other bodies.
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If you could like to know more about our research programme
Together for Change: Pembrokeshire Communities Working Together
If nothing else, the COVID-19 crisis has given us a focus – on ourselves, in our own homes, and in our communities. We have worked together to meet individual needs and to help each other, and it has worked. Established groups have adapted to the crisis and many new groups have started – all to keep people safe and well. If we can do it in a pandemic, why not for all the other things we need?
What next?
Let’s keep the focus on community and let’s prepare for positive change by:
- Working together to share good ideas and keep them flowing.
- Sustaining our successes built up recently and longer term.
- Keeping and developing local supply chains.
- Identifying local issues and solving problems using local skills.
- Planning forward for our own communities.
Interested in going forward together?
Every community is different, and we will all have reacted differently according to local need. There are lots of really good ideas out there so why not share them? We can save time and money by learning from each other.
The charity Solva Care – in partnership with PAVS and PLANED – has received funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to bring community groups together in Pembrokeshire to network and provide mutual support. We started with a showcase event at the Merlin Theatre in March and two online meetings in June. Find out about what has happened since then on the Together for Change website.
Solva Care and the Innovate to Save Project
Solva Care was delighted to be one of the organisations chosen to participate in the second phase of Innovate to Save; Welsh Government’s £5M research and development fund to help support public and third sector organisations to deliver services in Wales differently. Their programme was supported by Y Lab (a partnership of Nesta – the global innovation foundation – and Cardiff University) and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action.
Led by Solva Care’s Project Manager Lesley Robertson-Steel, the project investigated how Direct Payments can be organised in a way to provide people with greater choice, more personally-appropriate care and support to maintain and improve their wellbeing. The project also investigated how Solva Care, a community-led charity, could support the creation of a Care Co-operative to achieve this aim.
Solva Care worked closely on the project with project partners Hywel Dda University Health Board, Pembrokeshire County Council, Rural Health and Care Wales, and Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS).
The project is now complete, and the findings were presented at a Seminar in Solva on Thursday 24 October. Solva Care is aims to continue its work on the subject, working closely with Pembrokeshire County Council, PAVS and PLANED to remove some of the barriers discovered and create a Care Co-operative in Pembrokeshire. Download the report or its executive summary by clicking the buttons below.
In addition, independent researcher Bryan Collis undertook an evaluation of the contribution of co-production to the success of the project. Download his report which provides the background and method of evaluation, a discussion of relevant findings, and some learning points for other projects wishing to work in a co-productive way.
The Solva Care Toolkit
Solva Care have produced – as part of a Knowledge Mobilisation Project, supported by the Public Health Department of Hywel Dda University Health Board – a Toolkit.
The aim is to share the experience of setting up Solva Care by synthesising the knowledge gained from the success of Solva Care for other communities wishing to set up and run similar initiatives.
The Great Solva Mosaic Steps Project
Solva Care set up a community-mosaic arts project that involved members of the community learning how to create mosaics, and putting the skills learnt to use by producing mosaics to decorate a set of unattractive village steps. The project aimed to demonstrate wellbeing outcomes amongst participants from the community who were involved in producing the mosaics.
Research on Solva Care by outside organisations
We are pleased to have been the subject of research projects by other bodies. Here are the links to the reports.
Feasibility of evaluating Solva Care Final Report April 2017
Swansea University
Adult Social Care Social Enterprises and the Foundational Economy in Wales
Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods
Solva Care’s Reseach and Evaluation Projects
Here are links to some of our research and evaluation work.
Further reports and papers
Later Life in the United Kingdom
Age UK, in 2018, have produced a collection of statistics of publicly-available, general information on people in later life in the United Kingdom.
Adult Social Care Social Enterprises and the Foundational Economy in Wales
The Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods, in 2017, examined the scope for innovative delivery of adult social care.
A connected society: A strategy for tackling loneliness
Published by the Westminster Governmnet in 2018, the strategy sets out a vision for how we can all play a part in developing a more socially connected society.
A Call to Action
Published by the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, this report looks at ‘combatting loneliness one conversation at a time’.
The Strategy for Older People in Wales 2013-2023
Published by Welsh Government, the third phase of the strategy focuses on ensuring that older people in Wales have the resources they need to deal with the challenges and oportunities they face.
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