The CHESS Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial - Qualitative Research Fellow

About the Role

Working as part of multi-disciplinary team, you will support the delivery of qualitative work on the NIHR HTA funded CHESS research project by undertaking research activity, writing up research work for publication and collaborating with project partners.  The ethnographic qualitative work will involve interviews, focus groups, workshops, and observation with clinical, managerial and research staff and parents, carers, and children over multiple sites across the UK.  Some of the fieldwork will be conducted in person, so at times there will be travel to different parts of the UK, some will also be conducted remotely. 

The CHESS study is a clinical trial which seeks to assess how parents and professionals can support young children with neurodisabilities to develop independence in everyday self-care tasks. This is a multi-site randomised controlled trial which will include 40 NHS organisations and will involve 960 children and their families.  The outcome evaluation will focus on assessing the effects of the self-care intervention on the child’s self-care independence, self-care involvement in child-caregiver interactions, child-health related quality of life mental health, and caregiver health and care-related quality of life. There will also be an economic evaluation to establish the cost-effectiveness of the work and a qualitative process evaluation.  Initially, the qualitative process evaluation will support the development of recruitment and trial processes, with a particular focus on supporting inclusion and diversity.  During the internal pilot phase, we will also seek to develop solutions for any emerging problems.  Later in the process, we will seek to identify and develop optimal implementation strategies for embedding and normalising the self-care intervention beyond the end of the study.

This role is fixed-term for 36 months.

Further information is available in the job description .

This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 therefore the successful candidate will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check.

About the Team

You will be will embedded in the Implementation and Innovation Research Group (IIR) - a small friendly cross departmental group between Nursing, Midwifery and Health and Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing at Northumbria University.  IIRs work ranges from initiation, scoping, and development of novel ideas for service, therapeutic and care innovations, to feasibility studies, pilot, and full trials with embedded process evaluations, as well as the scaling up and scaling out of evidence-based interventions. IIR works with key health and social care stakeholders to develop innovative, individualised, community-based, and organisational solutions to problems of implementation and knowledge mobilisation through applied research. Through high quality research, we develop theories, tools, and methodologies as well as interventions to support implementation and knowledge mobilisation in practice.

About You

To be successful in the role you will have: 

Excellent practical, analytic and conceptual skills in ethnographic qualitative research.

Knowledge of contemporary debates in clinical trials is desirable, as is knowledge of debates and challenges relating to neurodisability. 

Ability to travel for purpose of data collection to various locations in the UK is essential.  

You will hold a PhD, have submitted your PhD or be about to submit your PhD in the next three months, or have equivalent experience, in a health and/or social science related discipline.  

Further information is available in the person specification.

If you would like an informal discussion about the role, please contact Professor Tim Rapley - [email protected]