Values driven policy in designing environments for children and young people's education, health and wellbeing

The new millennium coincided with a reappraisal of value in UK construction and calls from a wide range of influential individuals, professional institutions and government bodies for the industry to exceed stakeholders’ expectations and develop integrated teams that can deliver world class products and services. As such value is certainly topical, but the importance of values as a separate but related concept is less well understood. This paper addresses the construction industry’s need to deliver public buildings that can regenerate communities, transform schools, modernise healthcare facilities and inspire children in a way that will make a real difference to their lives. Doing this requires a strong service and estates vision driven not only by the technical building solutions, but also by practitioners aspirations. Stakeholder engagement is seen by the Government as a way to bring about this reform, however the stakeholder consultation tools that are being deployed by providers and clients alike may be limited in how they translate values, attitudes and good teaching, learning and healthcare practices into building design. The purpose of this paper is to present the need to understand with greater meaning the values and cultures of schools and healthcare facilities during construction briefing and delivery and how the spirits of users can be harnessed to ensure the success and transformation of a new facility. It presents a longitudinal case study in which various tools and approaches have been developed and applied to address this need within education capital projects. It also draws on value, values and stakeholder literature in education and healthcare. The importance of this paper is to extend the range of methodological tools used in construction to structure the effects of meaning, culture and values on the construction industry’s processes, products and building operation and to translate learning between the education, health and social care sectors. It also hopes to encourage construction providers to extend their service and explore the opportunity to employ a similar methodology, particularly in the public sector environment where there is a growing need for multi-agency service integration

Collaborating with consumer and community representatives in health and medical research in Australia: results from an evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To collaborate with consumer and community representatives in the <it>Alcohol and Pregnancy Project </it>from 2006-2008 <url>http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au/alcoholandpregnancy</url> and evaluate researchers' and consumer and community representatives' perceptions of the process, context and impact of consumer and community participation in the project.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We formed two reference groups and sought consumer and community representatives' perspectives on all aspects of the project over a three year period. We developed an evaluation framework and asked consumer and community representatives and researchers to complete a self-administered questionnaire at the end of the project.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fifteen researchers (93.8%) and seven (53.8%) consumer and community representatives completed a questionnaire. Most consumer and community representatives agreed that the process and context measures of their participation had been achieved. Both researchers and consumer and community representatives identified areas for improvement and offered suggestions how these could be improved for future research. Researchers thought consumer and community participation contributed to project outputs and outcomes by enhancing scientific and ethical standards, providing legitimacy and authority, and increasing the project's credibility and participation. They saw it was fundamental to the research process and acknowledged consumer and community representatives for their excellent contribution. Consumer and community representatives were able to directly influence decisions about the research. They thought that consumer and community participation had significant influence on the success of project outputs and outcomes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Consumer and community participation is an essential component of good research practice and contributed to the <it>Alcohol and Pregnancy Project </it>by enhancing research processes, outputs and outcomes, and this participation was valued by community and consumer representatives and researchers. The National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia expects researchers to work in partnership and involve consumer and community representatives in health and medical research, and to evaluate community and consumer participation. It is important to demonstrate whether consumer and community participation makes a difference to health and medical research.</p