Peer support for social care in prisons in England and Wales
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Peer support initiatives for adult social care in prisons in England and Wales
IRAS ID
316090
Contact name
Naomi Fulop
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Data Protection Registration Number, Z6364106/2022/06/101
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 30 days
Research summary
Many adult prisoners need social care support (support with daily activities), but do not always get it. To help adult prisoners receive the support they need, some prisons have started training adult prisoners to give social care support to other adult prisoners (called 'peer support'). Peer support is not available in all prisons and different prisons offer different peer support services. No research has looked at how these services are used in practice, or at how we can measure the impact and cost of these services.
This research aims to evaluate peer support services for adult social care in England and Wales.
As part of the project, we will look at:
- What is provided right now
- How these peer support services are used
- How people feel about these services, including: national leads, staff (leading and delivering/supporting services), buddies and those receiving social care
- How we can measure impact and cost of these services.To find out what is known about peer support services, we will look at the existing evidence.
To find out how people view peer support services for social care generally, we will conduct interviews with national and local stakeholders.
To find out how peer support services are used in practice and how people feel about them, we will interview staff leading services in up to 20 prisons. We will then carry out in-depth interviews with staff supporting delivery of these services, buddies (those delivering social care) and those receiving social care in four prisons.
To find out how to measure the impact and cost of peer support social care services, we will carry out a workshop with national and local stakeholders.
This will help us to find out whether services are suitable and practical for everyone involved in these services, and will help us to develop lessons to improve services.
REC name
London - South East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/LO/0592
Date of REC Opinion
17 Oct 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion