Based within the Social Impact team at Viridian - a mid-sized housing association - I worked to improve understanding of the needs and experiences of residents and identify areas for change within the business in response. I worked with internal and external partners to deliver community-based projects and activities for residents in response to an identified need, as well as to capture learning from different projects to inform future work. I worked in particular with the Viridian domestic abuse support team to identify the outcomes for this service and put in place evaluation measures to track whether or not outcomes were being achieved. I identified areas for improvement in the current way of working, and helped introduce specific changes in these areas.I also designed and carried out user experience testing to support the development of a new app to help tenants swap their homes, and developed a full evaluation framework for the service.

At Demos, I carried out original research with service users and policy and practice experts, aimed at evaluating and improving public services, and engaging with policy debates on topics including health, housing, social care, welfare, poverty and ageing. I have extensive experience of designing, arranging, carrying out and analysing findings from primary qualitative and quantitative research, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, workshops, diary research and surveys, as well as desk-based research. I have particular experience working with hard-to-research and 'vulnerable' groups, including families with complex needs, people with problem debt and end of life care patients. I have presented and interpreted research findings in published Demos reports. I also provided secretarial support and acted as lead researcher to the Commission on Residential Care, hosted by Demos.In addition to research, I helped promote research findings and recommendations through broadcast and print media coverage, developed new ideas for research projects including writing research proposals, and ran the Demos internship programme.

In this role, I was entrusted with all the day-to-day running of the national press office after volunteering for only 3 months. I was responsible for securing proactive and reactive media coverage in national and local media by drafting press materials, liaising with journalists and arranging broadcast interviews with Green Party spokespeople. I also researched and produced detailed briefings on relevant policy issues of interest to the Green Party, maintained up-to-date records of press office activity and contacts databases, and helped initiate improvements to press office admin systems. I worked alongside a team of press office volunteers, who I supervised by providing daily tasking and assistance.