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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which, in the five integrated community teams for adults with learning disabilities (CTLDs) in an English county-wide service, the use of psychotropic medication for service users was based on the presence of an appropriate mental health condition or epilepsy.

Adult participants were recruited following referral to one of the CTLDs for assessment, treatment and/or support of a possible mental health and/or behavioural need. Data were collected about participant characteristics and psychotropic medication 12 months after recruitment.

While a total of 42 (78 per cent) of the 54 participants were apparently prescribed regular or PRN (as required) psychotropic medication, only 24 (57 per cent) of these individuals had a recorded past or current mental health condition or epilepsy for which such medicine could be appropriate.

There were several limitations: the sample size was small and its representativeness was uncertain; and data collection was compromised by barriers to explicit knowledge exchange within and across the learning disability service.

While recent guidance about the use of psychotropic medication is welcome, minimising inappropriate use requires more comprehensive person-centred interventions (including crisis management plans), underpinned by imaginative, but feasible, data collection methods and integrated formulations. Investment is needed in developments that support multi-disciplinary and inter-agency working to promote “good practice” by CTLDs in responding to referrals for possible mental health and/or behavioural needs.

Complementing recent large studies of primary care (General Practitioner) records, this is the first examination of the use of psychotropic medication by service users in English CTLDs.

While “generic” community teams for adults with learning disabilities (CTs) are well-established in the UK, very little recent evidence is available about any aspect of their work. As part of a larger project about the role, structure and functioning of CTs, the purpose of this paper is to provide data about referrals.

Over three months, the authors obtained data about 270 consecutive new referrals to five CTs in a countywide integrated health (NHS) and care management (local authority) service.

The 270 referrals related to 255 individuals, mainly already service users, with almost a third (30 per cent, n=204) described as people with severe or profound disabilities. Consistent with the reported living arrangements (residential accommodation or with one or more family members (87 per cent, n=270)), referrals were most often made by social care staff, General Practitioners or carers. The referrals related to a wide range of issues including mental health and/or behavioural needs, physical health and skills, and independence. The major group, however, were requests about a person’s entitlement to specialist learning disability services and/or reviews of an existing social care package.

The focus on new referrals and the exclusion of intra-team referrals mean that the data are not representative of a CT’s caseload and cannot be used as a basis for resourcing. Nevertheless, the findings emphasise the heterogeneity of the population, and the long-term and varied nature of their needs, meaning that CTs require access to a range of expertise and, often, an inter-agency approach. The implications for service design are considered.

This is the first empirical study of referrals to specialist integrated (health and care management) community learning disabilities teams in England.

This final chapter reviews the key themes of the previous chapters to paint a picture of what it is to be an impactful academic. The reader is prompted to build strategies into their workflow and lives to ensure that impact remains a priority considering the many competing requirements in their roles. The chapter provides strategies for keeping impact on track by engaging both internal and external networks. As government priorities change, higher education will continue to morph and evolve. The impactful academic builds skills throughout their career span, and these skills increase resiliency in the face of a rapidly changing higher education sector; skills that are increasingly critical to career success. The chapter takes stock of skill development related to academic identity and impact goals and encourages readers to continue their impact journey through reflective practice.

Impact has generated much discussion in higher education in recent years, and it is not abating. This chapter lays the groundwork to build an understanding of what impact is, where it has come from and where it is likely to be going in higher education. The various roles of universities and academics and the value of knowledge generation and dissemination to communities outside of academia are explored. Understanding impact and how it is enacted, monitored, evaluated and reported is essential to position impact within one's academic practice. While various definitions of impact have been adopted in different contexts, the focus is on leveraging those definitions as an academic. The language of impact is important as it determines how some disciplines are privileged and others potentially are disadvantaged. The chapter encourages academics in the latter category of disciplines to be active in helping shape the conversation around impact in their contexts. The final section discusses where impact may be going within higher education, how to get the most out of the book as a researcher and what each chapter contributes to becoming an impactful researcher. There is no one right way to be an academic; the reader is encouraged to use each chapter to help hone and refine their academic trajectory given their own epistemological beliefs.

In this chapter, we share our top tips on writing impact for funding bids and reports. These are drawn from our extensive experience working across a UK university as research impact managers and also successfully developing and writing small to multimillion-pound grant applications for UK charity, UK Government and European funding. We have developed and delivered impact training to researchers at all career stages, written impact case studies for the UK's research assessment and published on the genre. ¹ We also lead the Impact Special Interest Group for the UK's Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and contribute to conferences and specialist training internationally, which has included the Australasia region, Africa and Europe.

This chapter discusses practical ways that we as researchers can identify and make use of supports that will help further our research impact and advocates for making plans to include impact work from the beginning and taking advantage of opportunities and resources available. The chapter begins by encouraging you to identify your own values related to research impact and to articulate what impact you would like their research to have in the world. This ensures that impact work does not become a tick-box exercise but a meaningful, planned part of their research practice. The chapter then looks at supports – collegial and institutional – from the perspective of information science. The discussion of collegial supports makes the case that colleagues are key sources of practical information, assistance and mentorship; these connections can become information relationships and important parts of your professional network. The discussion of institutional supports makes the case that the landscape of impact can be scattered, so it is important to actively seek out information to help understand the impact environment where you are. Each discussion is accompanied with practical suggestions about how to make the most of opportunities and get the supports needed. The chapter ends with a section aimed at those who are in leadership positions to discuss what can be done to help reduce barriers and provide supports for those who are undertaking research impact projects, including helping to share information and resources about research impact, as well as acting as a mentor.

The penultimate chapter pulls together pieces of the previous eight chapters to support you in building a career-level impact plan. While the other chapters are a mix of foundational knowledge and practical approaches, this chapter is more philosophical in nature and intended to motivate the reader to bring their impact journey to life. You are encouraged to reflect on your own journey and consider what steps you might take to achieve a career that is consistent with your values and own belief in the importance of the work you do. Contributions from impactful researchers from the University of Auckland help to illustrate how diverse career pathways can be, emphasising there is no one-size-fits-all approach and that career-level impact plans need to consider personal motives and values, intersectionality, as well as disciplinary, institutional, national and international contexts. Plans need to focus on identifying opportunities to hone impact skills, finding people who can be part of your broader impact support team and working out how to strategically balance the teaching, research and service expectations placed on you as an academic. Throughout this chapter, questions prompt you to start building your own understanding of impact in the context of your career or to strategically reflect on your impact journey up to now.

As academics, quantitative and/or qualitative methods are at the heart of the research we conduct and the insights we seek to share with the world. However, this does not always translate into impactful engagement for the stakeholders and communities we engage with, despite the evidence that indicates the potential to do so. One of the critical ways that academics can generate impact is through community and stakeholder engagement – developing networks and external partnerships that work collaboratively to generate change. Research indicates that more participatory methods of engagement where stakeholders can co-create solutions have the greatest transformational potential for impact. The key to differentiating meaningful and impactful stakeholder engagement from distinct concepts such as communication or consultation is understanding the level of influence the stakeholder will have on the decision. This chapter provides a practical guide for academics to build their practice in impactful engagement throughout their career through eight simple steps. Using the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) spectrum of public participation, an example of how engagement methods can be selected to build impactful engagement skills throughout the academic career is illustrated. Impactful engagement has the capacity to bring diverse voices and perspectives together to shape decisions and change, and in so doing, create greater impact.

In today's digital environments, online engagement is a critical component of achieving successful, sustainable impact. Building an online presence that extends beyond the walls of academia is therefore an essential part of developing as a scholar during any stage of the career span. In this chapter, we discuss career-wide approaches for establishing yourself as a “networked scholar” (Goodier & Czerniewicz, 2015) to build connections and foster communication. We also explore ways to engage your audience through open, public outputs (publications, graphics, websites, profile tools, etc.). Using the key strategies presented, scholars can build an online academic presence and increase their scholarly visibility on the web or through social media. At the core of this chapter is an exploration of how academics can develop and communicate about themselves and their research interests, to achieve their goals both in the near-term and across their career span. While the approaches presented are not prescriptive, they are intended to encourage the reader to generate a plan for online engagement that helps establish their scholarly identity. These tried and tested activities can be leveraged for engaging different audiences in research in ways that promote networked scholarship and create pathways to impact.