Career Development Awardee
bethany.morgan-brett@citystgeorges.ac.uk
Dr Bethany Morgan Brett is a Research Fellow for My Home Life England at City, University of London, with almost 20 years’ experience lecturing in Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, Sociology, and Social Psychology. She has published extensively, including the book The Child-Parent Caregiving Relationship in Later Life: Psychosocial Experiences. Her research expertise spans ageing across the life course, social care, therapeutic communication, end-of-life care, mental health, transitions, and bereavement.
Bethany’s research interests include:
- Formal and informal care
- Older people
- Ageing
- Transitions
- Loss
- Participatory action research
Read more about Bethany’s Career Development Award plans
Developing Skills for Inclusive Research in Care Homes and Strengthening Capacity for Meaningful Community Engagement
This award will support the development and piloting of skills in developing inclusive, ethical, and co-produced social care research.
Year One will support across four identified development areas: 1) Ethics, 2) Creative methods and communications strategies, 3) Co-production, and 4) Grant writing. I have identified the training, skills and capacity strengthening opportunities which will help to develop each of these four development areas.
Year Two will involve piloting these acquired skills through a series of community-engagement activities with older people living in care homes who have cognitive and/or communication differences. This will include an immersive stay in a care home to learn more about the lived-experiences of the participants across all times of the day or night.
My experience of these community-engagement activities in the care home will be communicated back to participants and those it matters to, through feedback sessions at a service user forum and to the care home, and through a professionally designed infographic. I will also present the findings at academic conferences.
Working with practitioners and academics to develop these research and communication skills – and being able to test these out in a real care setting – will be vital for creating future research, which is collaborative, inclusive, and co-created with others.
The award will ultimately lead to a HRA ethics application, an associated NIHR grant submission, and will lead to my progression to a senior fellowship.
