Dr Verina Waights

Professional biography

Research interests

My research centres on improving the quality of life and care of service users and carers, especially older people and those with long-term physiological conditions, such as diabetes, heart failure, neurodegenerative diseases and the physical health needs of service users with enduring mental illness. I am co-investigator on a number of research projects  with colleagues from research institutes, universities, technological companies and carer associations across Europe including Germany, Greece, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain and The Netherlands.

Recent projects  include:

DISCOVER: Digital Inclusion Skills for Carers, Bringing Opportunities, Value and Excellence

Website: DISCOVER

This pan-European DISCOVER for Carers project, running from April 2012 to March 2015, aims to improve the quality of life of carers and the older people they care for through  enhancing their digital skills and encouraging them to pass on these skills to the people they are caring for.  This project uses an interactive design, keeping carers at the heart of the development of the DISCOVER platform and skills zone. Focus groups with carers highlighted their wish to develop their caring and employability skills alongside developing their digital skills.  The partners are exploring embedding this platform in training for professional carers with a number of care organisations.

ESRC seminar series - Older People and Technological Inclusion: Multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary realities and aspirations 

Website: Older People and Technological Inclusion 

Four seminars were held between April 2011 and April 2013 to explore the concept of technological inclusion in relation to older people's experiences of everyday life.  Each seminar brought together older people, researchers from a range of disciplines including Social Sciences, Computing, Arts and Design, and commercial providers of technological devices including those designed to enable older people to live independently. The first seminar was held at Bletchley Park - the historic site of code-breaking during the Second World War and home of the National Museum of Computing.

OPT-in: Older People and Technological Innovations

Website: 'OPT-in': Older People and Technological Innovations

This two-year project , which ran from April 2009 to April 2011, was supported by funding from the European Union Grundtvig Life Long Learning Programme, in collaboration with AgeUK, Milton Keynes.  It  explored different ways of helping older people to learn about new and emerging technologies. Instead of formal ‘class-room-style’ instruction, older people participating in the project  tried out new devices in the company of other older people from around Europe, with assistance from computer scientists and social scientists from the partner countries: Scotland, The Netherlands, Germany and Slovenia. Exchange visits between these countries enabled older people and project partners to share their experiences and examples of good practice.

Previous research projects include:

• Coping strategies of the 'stretched ' generation - caring for dependent children and older relatives in the same time frame

  This project was undertaken with my research student Dr Caroline Moore, who is now a research associate at Cambridge University.

• the role of community matrons in the well-being of people with long-term conditions from the perspectives of the patients, the matrons and their employers

  Verina was co-investigator with  Professor Shirley Reveley, Dr Caroline Holland and Dr Shelagh Sparrow o n this project supported by CETL PBPL. It explored the knowledge and skills required by community matrons and their role in the transfer of knowledge between the various stakeholders involved in the care of people with long term conditions and their carers, including the service users and carers themselves.

• preventing age discrimination in practice

  Verina,  Dr Caroline Holland and Dr Joyce Cavaye designed and ran a series of workshops with nurses and healthcare professionals looking at professional and personal experience of age discrimination.  A pilot workshop in collaboration with RCN London led to RCN Scotland commissioning workshops in Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow.  These workshops built on the ‘Research on age discrimination’ (RoAD) project, whose  findings were published in the report: To Old: Older people’s accounts of discrimination, exclusion and rejection. The RoAD project was undertaken by  Bill Bytheway, Caroline Holland, Sheila Peace and Richard Ward, in association with Help the Aged.

   

   Publications

  Tetley, J. Holland, C., Waights V. et al., (Forthcoming) 'Exploring new technologies through peer-to-peer and intergenerational engagement in informal learning', in D. Prendergast and C. Garattini (eds). Ageing and the Digital Life Course. Oxford. Berghahn Books. 

  Waights, V., Losada Duran, R., Bamidis, P. and de Graaf, H.(2013) 'Enhancing e-Inclusion through development of carers’ digital skills'  eChallenges Conference Proceedings 2013

  van der Linden J, Waights V, Rogers Y and Taylor C. (2012) ‘A blended design approach for pervasive healthcare: Bringing together users, experts and technology’Health Informatics Journal September 2012 18: 212-218

  Waights,V., Reveley, S. and Holland C. (2011) Knowing Long-term Conditions: Understanding the role and practice of the Community Matron, Final project report Oxford Regional Ethics Committee, NRES_ref-07-H0605-96

  Waights,V., Reveley, S. and Holland C. (2010) Knowing Long-term Conditions, Final project report, PBPL Paper 62

  Waights V (2008) 'Decision-making in Practice' in J. Spouse, C. Cox and M.Cook (eds.), Common Foundation Studies in Nursing 4th Edition. Elsvier

  Bassett, S., Waights, V., De Normanville, C., Brown, A., Cave, I., Lee, S., Dennis, L., Taylor, P., Eaton A., Morton, T., Moore, R., Lyndon, H. and Mitcham, L. (2007)Fitness for Practice: An assurance framework for Community Matrons and Case managers, jointly developed by the East of England Strategic Health Authority, South Central Strategic Health Authority, Sheffield Hallam University, The Open University, University of Essex and University of Leeds. Sponsored by the Department of Health and Skills for Health

  Invited lectures

  Waights, V., Losada Duran, R., Bamidis, P. and de Graaf, H.(2013) 'Enhancing e-Inclusion through development of carers’ digital skills'  eChallenges Conference 2013, Dublin 9-11 October

  Tetley, J. Holland, C. Waights, V. Hughes, J. Holland, S. and Warren, S. (2013) ‘Exploring new technologies through playful peer-to-peer engagement in informal learning’, AEA Annual Conference 2013.  Milton Keynes, 5 September

  Schuster-James, H. and  Waights, V.  (2013) ‘Communities Building Capacity – the Birmingham Living Lab: Creating pilot applications with re-use and scalability in mind’AAA Manchester 4^th ENoLL Summer School 2013  Manchester28 August

  Tetley, J. Holland, C. Waights, V. Hughes, J. Holland, S. and Warren, S. (2013) ‘Exploring new technologies through peer-to-peer and intergenerational engagement in informal learning’, Evolving Humanity, Emerging Worlds. The 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Manchester, 9 August

  Tetley, J. Holland, C. Waights, V. Hughes, J. Holland, S. and Warren, S.(2013) ‘Exploring new technologies through playful peer-to-peer engagement in informal learning’, ESRC Seminar Series: How do we turn aspirations into realities? Milton Keynes, 21 June

  Waights V., Tetley J., Holland C., Hughes J., Holland S., Nederland T., Toorn J., van den Reichert M., Lis, K., Mason A., Kokol P. and Blažun H. (2011) ‘Older People and Technological Innovations: Lifelong learning, health and wellbeing’, Technology with Disabled and Older People: Business development, Building alliances and impact assessment conference, London March 2011

  Draper, J., Bottoms, R., Counihan, S., Holland, L., Kenward, L., McDonagh, L., Messenger, J. and Waights, V. (2010) ‘Recognising the potential: Maximising meaningful learning in practice settings (Symposium)’, Nurse Education Today Conference 2010, Cambridge 7–9 September

  Counihan S., Draper J., Holland L., Kenward L., McDonagh L., Messenger J. and Waights, V (2010). ‘’What is the difference that makes a difference? in Recognising the Potential: Maximising meaningful learning in practice settings’ (Symposium)’ Nurse Education Tomorrow conference 2010 ,  Cambridge  7-9 September

  Messenger J. and Waights V. (2010)‘Breaking circuits in Recognising the Potential: Maximising meaningful learning in practice settings (Symposium)’,Nurse Education Tomorrow  conference 2013 Cambridge September

  Tetley, J. Holland, C. Hughes, J. Waights, V. Holland, S. (2010) ‘Older People and Technological Innovations: Lifelong Learning and Applications for Health and Wellbeing’, British Society of Gerontology 39th annual conference, Brunel,July

Teaching Interests

Verina's teaching focuses primarily on work-based learning for health care assistants within the Foundation Degree for Heathcare Practice and the Pre-registration Nursing Programme.   She has participated in the development of these programmes including chairing a number of modules across this provision, both during production of the module materials and in presentation. She is an experienced author and led  development of the first cohesive programme-wide assessment strategy.

e-learning in professional healthcare education

Her e-learning research and scholarship embraces the challenge of engaging with new technologies, whilst constrained by professional standards, through developing innovative modes of e-learning and investigating their effectiveness to develop and assess healthcare skills

Recent projects include the role and efficacy of:

• virtual simulations and web-based tools in developing nursing skills and exploring practice;
• interactive computer-marked assignments in formative and summative assessment.

PhD Skills and Assessment

Verina has also had a key role in developing doctoral students’ transferable skills, including development of the leading-edge PhD Skills and Assessment Scheme, the first in the UK, which was termed an ‘exemplar of good practice’ (QAA, 2005) and disseminated nationally through UKGrad, now VITAE. She is lead judge for the annual Doctoral student Poster Competition, which gives students experience in disseminating and discussing their research with the public.