ARU Research Report 2019

The Up Project 13 Interviews & Focus Groups Care home staff and relatives were informed of the research by the care home manager, those interested then volunteered to take part in an interview. All staff were included, providing they had been in their role six months or more, to insure exposure to the project and residents that were taking part in it. Only relatives of residents who had or were currently taking part in the project were included in interviews. Relatives completed interviews during their visits and members of care home staff completed interviews in their work time, therefore they were often unable to spend more than 15 minutes taking part in interviews. This was unsurprising given the issue of staff time constraints in well documented within care home literature as challenge for researchers (e.g. Lam et al., 2018). Teaching staff were invited to take part in an interview by the Deputy Head Teacher. Teaching staff were included in interviews if they were engaged with the project or were teaching/supporting children taking part in the project (in previous cohorts or currently). Children were recruited by a member of teaching staff known to them. Given the children’s age, it was appropriate for them to provide consent to take part, however parents/guardians were informed their child would be invited to take part in research, and given the opportunity to opt their child out. Children were then approached by a member to obtain informed written consent from each child. Only the current Year 6 cohort (Sept 2019-July 2020) who had previously or currently taken part in the Up project were included in focus groups. A member of teaching staff was present during focus groups. All participants of this research were advised taking part was voluntary. Interviews and focus groups were audio recorded. Audio was transcribed and analysed following the steps of Thematic Analysis set out in a guide by Braun and Clarke (2006). Sample 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted (four relatives; nine care home staff; three teaching staff). For teaching staff all had been visiting the care home with the children consistently for the current and previous cohorts. For care home staff, engagement with the project varied. Some had consistent roles in supporting older adults during the visits, other assisted as needed. Two semi-structured focus groups were conducted with Year 6 children (four children per focus group; aged 9-10 years). Five of the children had visit the care home in first academic term; three had visited during the second term. Only two children had previously been to a care home and only three had heard of dementia before the project. Ethics, Consent & Safeguarding Approval for this research was obtained from the Faculty of Health, Education, Medicine & Social Care Research Ethics Panel, Anglia Ruskin University. Considerations in relation to parental consent, risk assessment, and safeguarding for engagement in the Up project were in place prior to the research, and managed by the school and care home. Prior to the research commencing the primary researcher completed a DBS check and was aware of child safeguarding processes within the school and had completed safeguarding training. All children, teaching staff, care home staff and relatives provided informed written consent. All data collected was handled in accordance with the Data Protection Act (2018) and was anonymised. Pseudonyms have been used to avoid disclosing individual participant identities, however the school and care home have given permission to be named in this report.