Rapid Evidence Assessment of wellbeing evaluation research that uses the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scales ((S)WEMWBS)

Please note that the deadline for applying has been extended until 5pm on Thursday the 12th of August 2021.

We are looking for a senior researcher or research team with experience of conducting evidence reviews and with familiarity of wellbeing concepts and research.

The purpose of this work is to support the What Works Centre for Wellbeing to carry out a rapid evidence assessment of evaluation research that presents evidence on mental wellbeing as an outcome using (S)WEMWBS measures. This role will involve working with our Centre to answer the following review questions:  

1. What evaluation research has been carried out to assess the effectiveness of programmes and pilots on mental wellbeing?
2. What is the strength of evidence of the evaluation research?
3. What are the key findings from the evaluation research?

Guiding principles of the work

To collate studies that present high quality findings that can inform the design or commissioning of programmes and pilots

• We would like the review to focus on controlled before-and-after studies to increase the likelihood of identifying evaluations that use more robust designs and provide evidence on causality.      

To capture the range of interventions and settings in which (S)WEMWBS measures are used to report findings on mental wellbeing

• The researcher / research team will be expected to develop a multi-faceted search strategy which includes subject-specific databases, google searches and citation tracking. The strategy must also include the search for grey literature to determine the presence of publication bias, ideally, by supplementing google searches with a call for evidence and interviews with relevant experts.  

To make a strong case for the study inclusion/exclusion criteria 

• In the scoping stage of the work, the researcher / research team will be expected to work with our Centre to explore the trade-offs for refining the study inclusion/exclusion criteria by intervention type, delivery context, population, language, and country. 

Roles and responsibilities  

The appointed researcher/team will be responsible for: 

• Conducting scoping searches and making recommendations on how to maximise relevant returns 
• Conducting main searches
• Extracting key data from the studies 
• Conducting critical appraisal of the included studies using our Centre’s predetermined quality criteria (Appendix 1) 
• Developing an approach for summarising and/or synthesising the findings by intervention thematic area or type, where relevant.

The What Works Centre for Wellbeing will be responsible for project management and methodology, as well as the leading on the following specific aspects of the work:

• Producing a final scoping report to inform the development of the search strategy and protocol
• Approving the final search strategy, including basic parameters for study identification and inclusion criteria
• Chairing the project consultation group
• Conducting final quality assurance to assess robustness, usefulness and accessibility of study findings.  

We will set up a project consultation group which will include our Executive Director and will be composed of academics and practitioners to act as a ‘sounding board’ on methodological issues. The group will ensure that findings are analysed and disseminated in a way that is clear, relevant and useful for our Centre’s key audiences. 

Deliverables

We would like the researcher / research team to produce a technical report which should include:

• Project PICOS and PRISMA diagram
• Details of included studies using our Centre’s study data extraction template and Critical Appraisal framework 
• A brief summary that addresses the following questions: 

1. State of the Evidence:  How developed and how consistent is the evaluation evidence base on mental wellbeing? What evidence is there for causal inference by intervention thematic area or type?
2. Evidence Gaps: Where are the gaps in existing knowledge, including uncertainties for specific intervention thematic area or type?
3. Applicability: What are the implications of this research for the design of future interventions aimed at improving mental wellbeing
4. Recommendations: How can the What Works Centre for Wellbeing build on this work in the future?

Expected Timetable (July 2021 – January 2022)

How to apply

If you would like to be considered to undertake the review please detail your expression of interest and a short research proposal in no more than 2000 words (excluding tables and references) to cover: 

• Your understanding of the brief and proposed methodology for refining the thematic scope, breadth and depth of the review.
• An outline of the search strategy you intended to use and how you will access this data (in light of potential covid-19 restrictions for accessing data secure labs etc).
• Your ability to carry out the proposed work, including relevant skills and demonstrable thematic and technical expertise.
• A Project Plan with key activities and deliverables, including number of days expected for each task.
• A Budget, including a full breakdown of your proposed fees, identifying the day rate and  seniority of member(s) of staff assigned to each role. The proposed budget should include all expenses and VAT, where applicable.
• An example (and link, if possible) of two pieces of related work carried out that demonstrates your ability to deliver similar assignments. 
  

Please send your proposal with the subject line: Proposal for (S)WEMWBS ITT to  info@whatworkswellbeing.org  no later than 5pm on 12th August 2021.

Assessment Criteria 

Our criteria for assessing the applications includes quality and price and is set out below: 

Please submit any questions by email to margherita.musella@whatworkswellbeing.org with the subject line: Question regarding the (S)WEMWBS ITT.

Background information

The What Works Centre for Wellbeing (WWCW) 

At the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, we believe that improving wellbeing is the ultimate goal of policy and community action. We are an independent collaborating centre that develops and shares robust and accessible evidence to improve decision-making.  As a bridge between academia, government, business and civil society, we value evidence from all sectors and work to build learning systems that can improve wellbeing knowledge through high quality and accessible evidence syntheses. 

As a Centre, our work aims to move the wellbeing evidence base forward by contributing to:  

• Conceptualisation – ensuring wellbeing definitions and frameworks are clear, workable and that they are understood by our audiences;

• Measurement – ensuring the wellbeing measures we recommend are valid, reliable, context-appropriate and fit-for-purpose for our policy and practice audiences; 

• Collation and Synthesis – identifying, summarising and synthesising data to build the evidence on wellbeing causality for each of the 10 ONS dimensions of wellbeing; promoting the evaluation of programmes and interventions using methodologies we have confidence in;

• Translation & Dissemination – making recommendations about what evidence-based action should be taken; ensuring our outputs are accessible, useful and that they reach audiences in a way that can inform decision-making. 

We aim to improve wellbeing in the UK and reduce wellbeing inequalities through our priority areas of research and action: 1) Working life, 2) Community and Social connection, and 3) Methods and measures.  Since 2015, we have worked with cross-disciplinary academic teams to conduct systematic reviews of the evidence on wellbeing and culture and sport, work and learning, community wellbeing and methodological approaches. 

Rapid Evidence Assessments 

We conducted some scoping work with funders and civil society stakeholders in 2018 to survey the sector’s needs and current practice in regard to wellbeing evaluation. Findings suggested that the sector is generating a diverse body of wellbeing evidence and that there is an opportunity to inform the design of wellbeing programmes and pilots by giving higher quality evaluations greater visibility.   

Since 2019, our Centre has conducted more targeted searches for studies using pragmatic review methods. To date, we have carried out rapid evidence assessments both to build a summary picture of the evidence from on personal wellbeing outcomes (ONS4), and to explore key factors and wellbeing outcomes linked to volunteering. These findings form part of our knowledge bank which now includes over 500 evaluations of wellbeing programmes and interventions delivered across 29 OECD countries.  

We would like to build on this work further by reviewing evaluation research that reports findings on “what works” to improve mental wellbeing using the (S)WEMWBS scales. 

The collation of studies that use mental wellbeing / (S)WEMWBS as a dependent variable offers several benefits:    

Widely used by our Centre audiences and target sectors 

• Data from our organisational knowledge base suggests that a sizeable proportion of the wellbeing evaluation literature reports findings on physical and/or mental health and that the (S)WEMWBS scales are used widely in both published and grey literature studies.
• Data on the free licensed use of (S)WEMWBS measures between 2006 and 2016 suggests that they are used in a range of settings, more commonly, within the public sector and in particular, within healthcare and educational settings. *

Clarity of construct and comparability of evidence

• The (S)WEMWBS scales measure two primary components of positive mental health, namely, the hedonic perspective, which focuses on experience of happiness and life satisfaction, and the eudaimonic perspective, which focuses on psychological functioning. **
• (S)WEMWBS results can be used to compare the efficacy of interventions in promoting positive mental health. 

Fit-for-purpose and availability of population-level data 

• WEMWBS shows high levels of internal consistency and reliability against accepted criteria, as well as being relatively short, acceptable and meaningful to general population groups, and relatively unsusceptible to bias.
• (S)WEMWBS scales are included in several government surveys such as the Understanding Society national panel longitudinal survey, all Scottish government cross-sectional surveys and the Coventry City Council Household survey. Population-level data can be used for benchmarking purposes or to build reliable counterfactuals using synthetic control methods.

* Shah, N., Steiner, D., Petrou, S., Johnson, R., Stewart-Brown, S. (2018). Exploring the impact of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scales on public health research and practice (unpublished).

** Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, J., Stewart-Brown, S. (2007) The Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 5(1):63. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-5-63.

Job title: Civil Society & Community Wellbeing Lead

Employed by: What Works Centre for Wellbeing

Reports to: Head of Implementation & Learning at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing (for overall management and development). Some projects will have different reporting lines, including matrix management of projects for the Institute for Community Studies.

Line Manager Responsibilities: Nil

Salary: £35,000 – 42,000 pa depending on project and experience

Deadline: Sunday 8 August 2021

Sector Lead Role

This role is being advertised by the What Works Centre for Wellbeing (“the Centre”) in partnership with the Institute of Community Studies (“the Institute”). The successful candidate will be employed by the Centre but will carry out work for both organisations.

The Centre’s aim is to improve wellbeing in the UK and, because there are big differences in wellbeing across the country and civil society and our social connections are a large driver of wellbeing, improving community & connection is a key priority.

The Institute’s aim is to promote positive social, economic and environmental outcomes across the UK, as defined by local communities themselves. The Institute gives particular weight to lived experience and participatory methods of inquiry, alongside more traditional qualitative and quantitative approaches.

The Lead is to be the Centre’s focal point for wellbeing in the Civil Society Sector in the UK with a specialism in community wellbeing.  The purpose of the role is:

1. To work with the civil society representatives, local communities and professional researchers to fill evidence gaps and identify new research requirements.
2. To communicate and use the existing global knowledge base about community wellbeing.
3. To advance the state of knowledge and conceptual understanding of community wellbeing through the development of collaborative, evidence-based research and engagement projects.
4. To engage in stakeholder and community-based dialogues on the connections between wellbeing and other social, economic and environmental outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Lead work with the Civil Society sector including by proactively engaging with the sector stakeholders and network partners (e.g. National Lottery Community Fund and other trusts & foundations, UK Research & Innovation, MHCLG, DCMS, ChEW, NCVO, StreetGames, Pro Bono Economics, Centre for Thriving Places, Neighbourly Lab, Campaign to End Loneliness) to bring the evidence of ‘what works’  into practice and developing further understanding of the sector needs and interest to:

• Ensure Centre and Institute outputs meet the needs and interest of the sector
• Identify areas of research needs from practice
• Make the evidence as accessible and useful as possible
• Make it as easy and robust as possible to learn from action taken to improve community wellbeing.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Ensure sector partners are able to engage with the evidence base and ensure products for the sector are accessible, useful and communicated well so that they can take informed, effective action and further develop sector knowledge.
• Work closely with a cohort of small and medium-sized charities, social enterprises and community groups to help them develop their approach to wellbeing evaluation.
• Manage and develop the Centre and Institute’s engagement with sector leadership groups and ensure that members have a voice in the development of relevant products and services.

Communication & Engagement

• Represent the Centre and Institute at sector meetings and events to share and build the wellbeing evidence base, engage the sector, promote the uptake of high quality evidence and promote and support sector specific evaluation of wellbeing impact to help grow the evidence base.
• Manage the development of sector practice examples and ‘practitioner perspective’ blogs.
• Informally support connections between researchers, practitioners and community groups.

Implementation & Product Development

• Design and deliver presentations, bespoke courses, online learning and workshops in support of the above e.g. on designing in wellbeing into Theory of Change, Evaluation of Community Wellbeing.
• Maintain and develop sector-specific products and methodologies such as factsheets, guidance, tools, including joint products and projects such as working with the Centre’s Evaluation Lead on improving benchmarking data.
• Engage with the sector to build wellbeing knowledge and methods into existing systems e.g grantmaking, commissioners, innovation funds or evaluation guidance to grantees.
• Work with other Centre and Institute staff to make maximum use of knowledge & expertise.

Supporting New Evidence Generation, Evaluation & Synthesis

• Work with other Centre and Institute staff to ensure that evidence gaps are filled through supporting measurement, evaluation and research. This is supported by the Centre’s Evidence Journey Model and methodologies.
• Project manage community wellbeing research and implementation projects in line with the Centre’s Quality Assurance process with its advisory panel, as well as with the Institute’s Community Advisory Board.
• Support methodology improvement that is practical and relevant to the sector’s activity, capability and capacity e.g. in the scoping of the data lab.

Working with the Centre’s Implementation Team

• Work with colleagues in the Implementation Team to ensure they have a shared understanding of the latest wellbeing evidence and methodologies and excellence in knowledge mobilisation.

Other Responsibilities

All roles include an element of partnership and business development by identifying and securing opportunities for further projects and partnerships.

How to apply

To apply for this role please email a cover letter and CV to jobs@whatworkswellbeing.org by Sunday 8 August. Shortlisted candidates will be required to give a presentation at the interview stage, which will be held via Zoom on Thursday 12th August. Please get in touch if you can’t make this date for any reason.