This role is for a qualitative researcher to work with Dr Polly Radcliffe and Professor Joanne Neale at King’s College, on a multi-site, longitudinal study that has been funded by the National Institute for Health Research, ‘Evaluating Models of care, best practice and care pathways for women who are dependent on drugs and their infants, from preconception to 18 months postnatal’ or the Stepping Stones Study.
The study is jointly led by Dr Polly Radcliffe at the National Addiction Centre, KCL and Professor Helen Cheyne of the Nursing Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals Research Unit at the University of Stirling. The study will firstly seek to establish systematic evidence of best practice models that improve the wellbeing of mothers and babies and that have the potential to interrupt the transmission of adversity across generations; and secondly will entail longitudinal qualitative research with 40 women, tracking their care pathways and experiences of services and treatment through pregnancy and up to 18 months postnatal.
Using a range of qualitative research methods including serial qualitative interviews, timelines drawn by the research participants and audio diaries, we will explore women’s views and experiences of models of care and how services can be improved.
