Expertise
Reflecting the diversity of research methodologies that the Centre is likely to make use of in the coming years, and the need for the group to reflect the realities of children’s social care, we are looking to recruit members with a wide range of expertise, without the expectation that any one member will be an expert on all. The broad areas of expertise required are:
- Impact evaluation in children’s social care
- Implementation and process evaluation
- Randomised controlled trial design
- Statistics for analysing randomised controlled trials, and for ex-ante power calculations
- Quasi-experimental methods
- Machine learning and natural language processing
- Measurement, instrument development and validation, and psychometrics
- Economic evaluation
Responsibilities
The Evaluation Advisory Group will meet twice a year as a group to discuss and to shape the Centre’s approach to evaluation.
The group will peer review the Centre’s evaluation guidance. It will also make recommendations to the Centre as to the suitability of organisations who apply, through a competitive process held in August-September 2019, to join the Centre’s Panel of Evaluators. This will be established by October 2019.
Organisations successful in joining the Centre’s Panel of Evaluators will be invited to apply to evaluate specific projects which are identified, or directly funded by the What Works Centre. Between meetings, individual group members, or a sub-group based on expertise, may be convened, either in person or remotely to provide recommendations on the suitability of these applications, or other methodological issues.
Term
We envisage group members serving an initial two-year term with potential for renewal after this period. The Centre’s funding currently runs until March 2020, so we would need to formalise an extension of the term once long-term funding of the Centre is agreed.
This is now closed
If you have any questions about the role, please email wwccsc@nesta.org.uk
Compensation
Group members will be paid an honorarium for their time, and travel and subsistence expenses will be covered.
About the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care
The What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care is an initiative that seeks better outcomes for children, young people and families by bringing the best available evidence to practitioners and other decision makers across the children’s social care sector. Our mission is to foster a culture of evidence-informed practice. We will generate evidence where it is found to be lacking, improve its accessibility and relevance to the practice community, and support practice leaders (e.g. principal social workers, heads of service, assistant directors and directors) to create the conditions for more evidence-informed practice in their organisations.