Public Advisory Group (PAG)

The SOCRATES approach to public involvement and co-production starts from the recognition that academics do not know everything and that meaningful learning comes from working alongside people with lived experience.

Our Public Advisory Group (PAG) is a diverse group of 16 people with lived experience of social care, coordinated by Tamsin Walker. This includes experience of receiving social care as children, young people or adults, being in local authority care, and engaging with services as parents or carers. Many have multiple areas of lived experience.

Not all members are listed here, but these are some members of the group who work on SOCRATES:

Bradley George Wilson
Chris Sims
Debs Smith
Georgia Jean Sullivan
Keiron Harris
Saffron Mae Baldoza
Samina Begum
Sarah Markham
Seema Desai
Suzanne
Wesley Dowridge

The PAG plays a central role across SOCRATES, advising on evaluations at every stage, as far as time and resources allow. Members also co-design and deliver co-production training, contribute to communications and engagement activities, advise on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, support researchers with co-production and help shape SOCRATES's strategic direction.

The PAG serves as a hub for lived experience within SOCRATES: a place where researchers can seek advice, members can share reflections and learning, and new ideas can emerge.

For each evaluation, SOCRATES Research Fellows – Nicole Steils, Nicola Farrelly and Martha Snow – work with up to three PAG members whose experience is relevant to the topic. They are joined by other public advisors and social care professionals to form an Evaluation Advisory Network (EAN), which provides guidance on the evaluation and supports its development and delivery.

Quotes from PAG members:

“Hi, my name is Chris! I personally got involved in the SOCRATES project as I am someone who has lived experience of services with varied outcomes. I am someone who has always been eager to want to help others and SOCRATES really felt like a journey that would allow me to accomplish this value of mine. SOCRATES has been amazing so far and it has been lovely to get to know what is being done to improve research within the field.” — Chris Sims, PAG Member

“I wanted to be involved with SOCRATES because I wanted the chance to use my lived experience and help make research better. I've found being part of it really rewarding, and have found the more I've put in, the more I've got out of it, as cheesy as that sounds. The more of my lived experience and insight I have shared, the more I've seen it reflected.” — Saffron Mae Baldoza, PAG Member

“I got involved as someone who has been involved in patient and public involvement work for over 12 years and who had lived experience of both health and social care as a service user and a carer. My motivation for the patient and public involvement work remains what it was at the beginning 12 years ago: that there are things in the care and treatment that people and their loved ones receive that are not right, and I want to do all I can to change that.” — Debs Smith, PAG Member

Steering Committee

Some words from our Chair:

“I'm delighted to chair the SOCRATES programme steering group. Key to this is their use of a rapid evaluation methodology that involves a diverse group of stakeholders including those that engage with social care in the design, data collection and the analysis of the data. This approach is evidence based and will undoubtedly yield helpful insights into the varied elements and context that support the adoption of great social care service innovations.” — Dr Cynthia Bullock, Innovate UK, Deputy Director - Healthy Ageing (Steering Committee Chair)

Steering Committee members:

Dr Cynthia Bullock, Innovate UK, Deputy Director - Healthy Ageing (Steering Committee Chair)
Professor Cecilia Vindrola, Director of the Rapid Research Evaluation and Appraisal Lab (RREAL), UCL
Emerita Professor Jill Manthorpe, The Policy Institute at King's, King's College London
Keiron Harris, Young Person Lived Experience Member, Peer Researcher
Margaret Ogden, Lived Experience Member
Martin Pratt, Former Executive Director Supporting People, Deputy Chief Executive at the London Borough of Camden
Professor Roy Sandbach, Newcastle University, former Director of the National Innovation Centre for Ageing
Professor Helen Weatherly, Professor of Health and Care Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York
Emerita Professor Nicky Stanley, University of Central Lancashire
Professor Vic Rayner OBE, CEO National Care Forum

“I got involved in SOCRATES because I wanted to ensure the diverse voices and experiences of young people are being heard and listened to throughout the process, and to be able play a small part in making other young people's experiences better than my own. I am really excited to see the potential benefits of a project like SOCRATES to young people all across the country, and I hope that through valuable research, it can make a significant impact in empowering voices and improving lives.” — Keiron Harris

Dr Tamsin Walker

Biography

Research

Research

SOCRATES (Social Care Rapid Evaluation Team)

Research

SOCRATES (Social Care Rapid Evaluation Team)