SSRG on the wider web

Hi there
At the Executive Committee meeting of the SSRG (Social Services Research Group) today I volunteered to be the new Membership Secretary. I look forward to meeting the new members of the organisation.

I should like to thank my predecessor in the post, Poonam Jain for the sterling work that she has done for the last few years. Your lively enthusiasm will be missed.

To make the organisation even more accessible there is going to be an increased presence on the wider world wide web. SSRG Social Services Research Group is a registered group on Facebook, There is also a presence on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2105838&trk=anet_ug_hm

Looking forward to any comments this or previous blog posts bring up preferably on the blog or via email on mark@research-plus.co.uk

Choosing A Care Home Article in Draft

We are putting together an article that came out of our experiences last year. Mark's mother had a stroke and we needed to find her a care home quickly. We already knew some information and being researchers we were able to find out a lot more e.g. from CSCI now the Care Quality Commission (www.cqc.org.uk). What lingers is the memory of how difficult this is to do when trying to do the best for a parent.

This got us thinking:
What information do you need?
Where do you go for information?
What are the most useful sources of information?
How do you assess what / where will be suitable for your parent?

The seeds of the idea were born and the article / guide will be the first result. We have several ideas but thought that it would be a good idea to include other people's experiences.

This is where you come in.

Have you had to find a care home or a nursing home for a member of your family?
What information did you find most useful?
What other information would have helped the process?
What would you suggest people consider when visiting a prospective home?
What else would you think would be helpful to people going through this process?

We look forward to hearing from you.
If you would prefer to email us rather than post on the blog then send your thoughts to mark@research-plus.co.uk

SSRG Exec Meeting

just been to London for the Executive meeting of the SSRG - Social Services Research Group. I was elected on this year at the AGM in April so this meeting was very much a find your feet and listen affair. There are a couple of issues that I think that I might get my teeth into such as how blogs, Twitter etc can help the running of the group and the organisation as a whole.

No doubt there will be further posts about this as I get more involved.