Citizens Advice Exeter launches health impact research
Leading local advice charity, Citizens Advice Exeter is launching a new health impact research project.
The research follows on from the charity’s involvement last year, as part of a group of Citizens Advice charity’s in the County, into a study to better understand the long term outcomes for people who sought their help.
Steve Barriball, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Exeter said: “Findings from the research last year confirmed that our services make a significant difference to people’s situations, resolving their problems and having long-term positive effects on their lives. In addition to this, we also demonstrated savings for local and central government. We are funded through a number of sources and volunteers deliver most of the advice we provide. Evidencing the long-term outcomes of our work is important because it enables us to demonstrate the impact of our work to our funders.”
Steve continued: “To enable us to further develop our understanding of the impact that our services have, we are conducting new research to look specifically at the difference the advice we deliver makes to the health of local people. This work will help us to better understand the health of our clients and to explore changes in their health and wellbeing over time. “
Steve added: “Over the coming weeks, when people contact us they may be asked to participate in this research. This will involve completing a short initial questionnaire and then taking part in a follow up interview conducted by one of our volunteer researchers later in this year.”
Steve finished: “Participation in the research is voluntary and choosing not to take part will not affect the services that clients get from us. If people do choose to take part then we would be very keen to hear about what has happened since their initial contact with us and if anything in their situation has changed and how we could improve our services further.”
Last year the charity helped 22730 clients through a mix of on-line services, self-help facilities, telephone access and face to face interviews, with 35606 individual problems.
