Research: A squash and a squeeze…

There is a wonderful children’s book by a well known children’s author (many of you may know this one) that tells a great story about an old woman who thought her house was too small, so she approaches a wise old man for advice. He tells her to take in her hen, she is puzzled but does so. The hen causes havoc. She asks the wise old man for more advice. He advises to take in her pig. This goes on and she takes in 5 animals until her home is super full and quite chaotic. At some point her tells her to chuck them all out. In the end her house feels enormous and she is super happy. A fellow SLT researcher recently compared doing research to this children’s story. And I think I might currently have a house full of animals.

When I started out I wondered how I was going to juggle everything. 2 years in and I am about to embark on the pilot stage of my research project. In order to this I am bringing together all the work I have done to date. I have refined the intervention I have developed. I am in the final wrangles with the R&D departments, I am doing the last bit of work collecting video examples to support the training (after I just 4/5 weeks ago got my ethics amendment approved to do this), I am photocopying, stapling, hole Punching the vast training packs and am about to deliver the training to SLTs across 3 NHS sites,  I am also training the SLT project students who will be helping me, I am setting up IPads for them to use, my son just started school, my sister just got married, we are decorating two spare bedrooms at home and I am just about getting all the washing done and feeding both the kids when their hungry (I think).

I am currently in a squeeze. But although it is rather chaotic it is important. The training will be an opportunity to ensure the next two years are not such a squeeze (there may be a couple of moments in there yet buuuttttt hopefully I am due some respite). The training of the SLT collaborators who will deliver the pilot study intervention on the ground will ensure:

• Correct identification of eligible participants
• Appropriate consenting of said participants
• De-identified participant data
• (Accurately) Completed pre-intervention measures
• Delivery of an intervention that adheres to the intervention protocol (and fidelity monitoring to ensure everyone is doing this the same way)
• (Accurately) completed post-intervention measures
• Safe and sound collection of data
• Happy local collaborators who feel well supported

In theory once this training is done my house won’t be such a squash and a squeeze for a little while. Allowing me time to go back and get on and write my thesis chapters. Until the next time I invite them all in again for another go!