Project5 Research & Evaluation
Last Updated 15th March 2021
The purpose of research and evaluation in Project5?
Research and evaluation helps us to learn. The research arm involves a group of academics and researchers who are bringing together the best evidence to support wellbeing of NHS staff. Project5 was an idea conceived of in March 2020 by Dr. Craig Newman, but it takes many people to bring together an idea and make it work.
Our purpose is to ensure the highest quality evidence supports our work.
What is wellbeing?
Wellbeing is about health, both psychological and physical. Its focus is on positive, rather than negative aspects of these health forms. Wellbeing needs have been increasingly recognised in human resources departments and organisations over recent needs, particularly around the importance of developing resilience in the workforce.
We are a values driven organisation who want to develop organisational cultures where people can thrive, and we are trying to do that by balancing the expertise of our volunteer workforce, with the demands of the NHS for quality, the demands of NHS workers, and our own quality driven perspective. We want to be an inclusive organisation that supports and provides support in an effective and inclusive way – and we can achieve that through research and evaluation.
What are we evaluating?
Project5 is a brand new service, developed from scratch at rapid pace and with the aim of meeting an anticipated but previously unencountered need (much like many other organisaions recently!). The service developers believe passionately that Project5 needs to be able to “listen” from the outset and to adapt to the shape of that need, as necessary in order to meet that need to the best of its ability.
The evaluation activities, therefore, seek to accomplish two principle aims: to understand how the experience of both the volunteers providing the service and the people seeking support can be the best possible (so called formative evaluation); and also to identify the impact of the service to answer the question “does it work” (so called summative evaluation).
To this end everyone involved in the service, as service designers and founders, volunteers and those seeking support for their well-being at work will be asked questions at various stages of their experience. These will concern the ease of access to the service and any technical issues and also questions related to the impact of the service on well-being at work.
How can you be involved?
The larger the proportion of people involved in the service who respond to the evaluation questions, the better the information the service will have about how it can be responsive to the needs of those it seeks to support so you can be involved by taking a few moments to provide feedback when prompted. Of course, the service is designed to help those who are feeling “stressed” and we recognise that adding research questions to the experience is asking more of people who are already stretched.
All questions are voluntary – there is no obligation to answer them all . Indeed there is no obligation to answer any of them but any feedback you are able to give is truly appreciated.