We are delighted to announce that Revealing Reality – in conjunction with the London Borough of Waltham Forest – has received the award for Best Use of Local Area Research at the annual conference of the Local Authorities Research & Intelligence Association (LARIA).
The winning project focused on children’s centres in the borough, studying the daily lives, experiences and needs of local families. Using place-based ethnography, depth interviews, co-design and stakeholder workshops, our research went beyond ‘stated needs’ to reveal the wider importance of children’s centres in facilitating social engagement and wellbeing. By re-introducing the service user voice into commissioning discussions, we helped stakeholders from a range of different services re-assess the value of children’s services as a means of meeting a range of key objectives.
Alongside this win, we were Highly Commended in the ‘Best use of Health and Social Care Research’ category for our pioneering work with Wirral Council – seeking to remove barriers to health-related worklessness – while congratulations are due to our very own Charlotte Harris, who was Highly Commended in the New Researcher of the Year category.
