Malin Arvidson

The social return on investment in community befriending

Purpose – This paper seeks to illustrate the social and economic impact of services delivered by a small charity to families affected by post-natal depression (PND). It highlights challenges and offers insights to the meaning of “social value” and “value for money” for commissioners of public health services. This has relevance for the introduction of new policies regarding commissioning. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on a social return on investment (SROI) approach. Evidence was gathered from quantitative data, interviews and a literature review. The analysis examined short-, medium- and long-term effects, and attributed monetary values to social outcomes. Findings – The service provides a return of £6.50 for every £1 invested. The analysis established outcomes for service users and long-term impacts on families and children. It illustrated how these services are important in achieving more appropriate service responses, providing value for money to the NHS. Findings also relate to ...

Ethics, intimacy and distance in longitudinal, qualitative research: Experiences from Reality Check Bangladesh

This article contributes to debates about ethical and methodological dilemmas experienced in international development studies. It departs from a research experience based on a longitudinal study, the Reality Check Approach, that puts intimacy, immersion and consensus at its core. These concepts signify an ethically motivated approach that aims to ‘give voice’ to people living in poverty. They also describe an ideal research relationship assumed as the basis for good quality data. The article examines the difficulties encountered when faced with ambiguous meanings in people’s responses, and shortcomings of the approach. These include the combining of ethical and instrumental motivations in the research framework and ambivalent roles and conflicting ethics, highlighted in the conflictual notions of ‘giving someone space to talk’ and ‘making someone talk’.

What’s in it for us? Consent, Access, and the Meaning of Research in a Qualitative Longitudinal Study

Recruiting third sector organizations (TSOs) to a qualitative longitudinal (QL) study turned out to be in some cases a time-consuming and challenging process, and in others a little too easy. The governance structures of the organizations approached were not always simple to navigate with some organizations in a state of flux. Stakeholders’ different understandings of the meaning of research created tensions around anonymity. Establishing meaningful consent was not a straightforward process: who has the authority to grant “organizational” consent? This chapter explores the process of gaining consent and access, and maintaining relationships with research participants in “Real Times”; a study of TSOs and activities over three years. By third sector we refer to a range of non-governmental organizations and activities, including voluntary organizations, community groups, and social enterprises. Whilst the study is concerned with UK-focused organizations the issues raised can be seen to have direct relevance to the NGO sector and NGO scholarship more generally. Drawing on researchers’ field notes on the recruitment process, and interviews with the research team a year into the project conducted by one member of the team, we unpack some of the practical and ethical challenges of undertaking QL research in organizations.

To what extent can evaluation frameworks help NGOs to address health inequalities caused by social exclusion

Aim: Tackling health inequalities is a top priority for public health services in England. Third sector organisations, or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), are seen as having a key role in providing these services, particularly to the socially excluded, often dubbed ‘hard to reach’, for whom services must be provided if health inequalities are to be reduced. The plethora of evaluation frameworks available to NGOs have a variety of value bases, ranging from those which unambiguously support commissioners and providers to address health inequalities and work with the ‘hard to reach’, through to those which could offer such support if suitably adapted, to those that would struggle to address these issues in practice. In this context, the aim of this article is to answer the question, ‘to what extent can evaluation frameworks help NGOs to address health inequalities caused by social exclusion?’ Method: The literature on health inequalities, evaluation frameworks, and the policy context within which NGOs deliver public health services, is briefly reviewed. We then draw on the concepts of ‘comparative advantage’ and the ‘space of access’ to explore the extent to which evaluation frameworks can help NGOs to address health inequalities caused by social exclusion. Results: We identify contradictions between recent government policies around public service delivery in England which can make it difficult for service providers and commissioners to know which value(s) to focus on. This confusion is likely to at least perpetuate, perhaps even exacerbate, the marginalisation of socially excluded people, particularly in the current climate of austerity. The evaluation frameworks NGOs choose to use, and how they decide to use them, can have a real impact on health inequalities. We argue that, wherever possible, NGOs should place social value at the centre of the evaluation process, or at least make sure they capture as much as they can of the social value they create, in line with their own value base. Conclusion: Commissioners and providers do not always have a free choice about which evaluation framework to use, for example, due to resource constraints. Nevertheless, commissioners or providers can still influence evaluators to address health inequalities and involve the ‘hard to reach’.