When social workers work with children who have been or are likely to be abused or neglected, their first duty is to try to ensure the safety of the child. In many situations, such children can remain with their parents or main carers, so long as the necessary support can be provided to prevent further abuse or neglect from occurring. Where this is not possible, the removal of children into the care system is often the only remaining option. Crucial to maintaining a child successfully at home is the engagement of the parents with the necessary services, and the ability of those parents to make changes in their parenting behaviour. Unfortunately, the difficulties of assessing and understanding parents' engagement and capacities to change are significant. Instances are relatively common of social workers being over-optimistic about parents' abilities, or of misinterpreting willingness or friendliness towards professionals for a genuine ability to change their behaviour. Shortcomings of this kind have occurred in significant numbers of cases involving child deaths from abuse or neglect, the well-know case in the UK of 'Baby Peter' being a notable example. The principal investigator of the proposed project (Dr Platt) has extensive experience in both practice and research in relation to engaging parents with services, and working to change and enhance their parenting behaviour. Most recently, he has published a model that seeks to explain what leads to good engagement of parents with the necessary service interventions. This model will be used as the cornerstone for the project, which will involve developing methods and materials to help social workers assess, more accurately, parental engagement and capacity to change. The project will also draw on other relevant work, both at the University of Bristol, and (internationally) in social work and related disciplines. At the centre of this project will be a consultation with partner organisations to develop methods and materials that will be usable in the pressurised context of social work practice. Three organisations have agreed to work with the University of Bristol, all of which are local authority children's services departments in the South West of England. They have agreed to commit staff time to the collaborative development of these materials, working with a small team from the university, comprising the principal investigator, and a research associate who will be a social worker with relevant practice experience. Following an initial design phase, groups of staff in each partner agency will be given training in using the new methods, followed by a period during which consultancy will be provided to support the use of those materials in practice. Towards the end of the project, which has a proposed duration of 12 months, there will be an evaluation of the usefulness, applicability and success of the methods and materials that will have been developed. Following evaluation, the materials will be revised as necessary, and disseminated more widely. Dissemination will be through publication in suitably accessible formats, by offering training on a fee-paid basis to organisations who may request it, and through the usual academic outlets. Further evaluation of the impact of use of the materials on outcomes for children over a longer time frame would be beyond the scope of the project, but, depending on findings, a future funding bid from a suitable funder would be considered.

Serious illness and bereavement affect us all, but our experiences of them are not equal. People living in the poorest areas of the UK are less likely to get the care and support they need if they become seriously ill or a loved one dies. They are also more likely to be socially isolated and lonely - which can be made even worse by serious illness or bereavement. This project is based in Weston-super-Mare, a deprived coastal town in North Somerset. Nine of its neighbourhoods are among the poorest 10% in the country. The population is growing, getting older and living with more frailty and long-term, complex health conditions. There are also high levels of mental health and addiction problems. The project team will create a strong group with a shared aim ('a consortium') that unites health and social care workers, people providing community assets (collective resources which are available to individuals and communities, e.g. arts organisations, charities and community groups), academics, and people with lived experience to work together to reduce health inequities in Weston-super-Mare and the North Somerset region. Our consortium will focus on inequities related to end-of-life care, bereavement support, social isolation and loneliness. During the 9 months of the project, we will hold 3 consortium meetings and work together to: 1. create a directory of community assets and interview key people to understand how health and social care and community assets can best work together 2. design and evaluate creative and cultural activities to be held over Dying Matters Awareness Week (DMAW, May 2023), with members of the public employed as co-researchers 3. hold creative workshops with local groups (people with drug and alcohol addiction problems, young people, and older men) to facilitate conversations about grief and illness, raise awareness of local support, and help inform our DMAW events 4. review existing evaluation data from arts/creative organisations working in Weston-super-Mare over the last 5 years (2017-2022) to identify what activities have best engaged and benefitted the community, and draw on this in designing DMAW events 5. map available health and social care data and determine how it can be used to help understand, measure and reduce inequities 6. hold a final consortium meeting to: review all our work; consider how we can apply our findings in other deprived coastal towns; and agree research questions and methods for a future joint funding application The project will benefit: 1) the Integrated Care System (ICS), strengthening their relationships with community organisations and the public in Weston-super-Mare and providing information (community asset directory, map of datasets) to enable equitable end-of-life care and bereavement support; 2) community organisations, by bringing recognition and funding (via linking with the ICS) and helping them reach more people (via linking with the consortium and awareness raising at events); 3) creative and cultural organisations, by enabling them to engage and empower local community members in an evidence-based way, providing training to artists and increasing links with the ICS and community organisations; 4) members of the public, who will learn about the care and support available to them via the ICS and community assets and benefit from opportunities to express their experiences and socialise in creative workshops, attend free events, participate as co-researchers and at consortium meetings; 5) academic researchers, by modelling new multidisciplinary, collaborative ways of creating research and building evidence about how community assets can help reduce health inequities; 6) policy makers, by making recommendations for how ICSs can best harness community assets. We will engage with these groups via consortium meetings, blogs, the project website, journal articles, reports, presentations at community/ICS events and a policy brief.