Tackling Serious Stress in Veterans, Carers and Families: How will the evaluation work?

November 7, 2018

The Tackling Serious Stress programme will make large grants to projects that are trying out new and better ways of helping veterans who are very unwell, their carers and their families.

Through this programme, we will be looking very carefully at the projects that have been funded through the evaluation, which is being delivered through the University of Chester. The evaluation will explore the difference that the projects are making; and provide a evidence base so that we and others can have more information on funding projects that work.

We’ve been speaking with Professor Alan Finnegan, Professor of Nursing & Military Mental Health and the Director of the Westminster Centre for Research & Innovation in Veterans Wellbeing at the University of Chester who is leading the evaluation; to find out more about how it will work.

Read the evaluation guidance on the Tackling Serious Stress Programme Pages
The final design of the form will not be completed until the grants have been awarded next February. Any measurements and data collection will need to be applied to all the funded projects; which is why we are not able to confirm the final design of the evaluation until we know which projects are being supported. On the online framework, there is a table of what could be undertaken – not what will be undertaken. There will not be any Randomised Control Trials; although the findings may result in a recommendation for this in the future.

It’s important that once projects are set up; data can be given to the team at the University of Chester quickly; and the main mechanism for doing this will be through the questionnaire. This programme will be delivered through a portfolio approach. Grants will be made to single lead organisations which will manage a portfolio of work carried out by Delivery Partners.
The Delivery Partners within the project will collect data using a template that The University of Chester will provide, and Chester will do the analysis. Lead organisations will need to make sure that projects are sending the required data to the University of Chester.

Due to the number of projects under this common outcomes framework, means that the priority will be on layers one and two, within the evaluation outline document. This will be predominately a quantitative evaluation, with data collection from participants’ completing questionnaires. There will be space for free text; which will be clearly annotated within the evaluation questionnaires which will be finalised once the grants have been awarded under the programme. Researchers from the University of Chester will visit all projects that receive a grant at an early stage.

The programme closes on 31st December 2018; and the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust has launched an online contact list for interested organisations to be able to get in touch with each other. Once you are on this list; you will be able to see the details of all of the other organisations that have joined the list; and you’ll be able to access it at any time to see if additional updates have been made.  You’ll need to agree to use the information on the list just to contact other organisations that might have an interest in this programme; and not for any other purpose.