The Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice in Health and Social Care

St Catherine's College, Oxford

About the Centre

The Collaborating Centre has been set up to support the development of values-based practice through shared learning. Based at St Catherine’s College in Oxford the Centre brings together a wide range of individuals and organisations working on different aspects of values-based practice around the world. Although originating primarily in mental health and social care a particular aim of the Collaborating Centre is to support extension of values-based approaches to other areas of health care such as surgery.

 

The Centre has been set up to facilitate collaborations between individuals and organizations concerned to develop more effective ways of working with values in health and social care.

 

The Centre focuses particularly on values-based approaches. This includes developing effective links with other resources for working with values (such as ethics and law, health economics, decision analysis and various areas of the medical humanities). It also includes building links with evidence-based practice. Integral to the work of the Centre is the idea that values-based and evidence-based approaches are equal partners in clinical care.

What is Values-based Practice?

Values-based Practice (VBP) is a clinical skills-based approach to working with complex and conflicting values in healthcare. It is a twin framework to evidence-based practice (EBP).

Values-based practice (VBP) is an approach to working with complex and conflicting values in healthcare that is:

Complementary to other approaches to working with values (such as ethics) in focusing on individual values
A partner to evidence-based practice in supporting clinical judgment in individual cases
In focusing on individuals in this way VBP links science with the unique values of the particular people involved (as clinicians, patients, carers and others) in a given clinical decision.

Key Areas of Collaboration

Values-based Practice (VBP) is a clinical skills-based approach to working with complex and conflicting values in healthcare. It is a twin framework to evidence-based practice (EBP).

 

Latest Announcements

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Interdisciplinary research colloquium
December 2, 2023
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Values in AI in the British Medical Journal
November 22, 2023
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25th INPP Conference in Vienna
The International Conference on Crisis and Mental Health - philosophical and social aesthetic perspectives, organized by the International Network of Philosophy and Psychiatry (INPP), is pleased to announce its 25th edition, to be held at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, Austria. Due to late rescheduling of another international conference in Vienna the conference will now take place from May 23-25, 2024.
June 26, 2023
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Rehumanising Healthcare: a multidisciplinary event
Hosted by the The Human Values in Healthcare Forum. This event aims to provide a reflective ‘holding’ space to allow health and care professionals and others from different disciplines to connect, converse and to share stories, ideas, practical skills and resources. We will also hear from practitioners stories of overcoming difficulties in adversity.
May 30, 2023
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Care and Spirituality
In this talk, we will discuss Mozi (墨子, c. 470 BCE – c. 391 BCE), an intellectual figure during the Warring States period in ancient China. He advocated for the philosophy of Impartial Care, also referred to as Universal Love (兼愛, jian'ai), which posited that all actions should be grounded in the notion of undiscriminating care.
May 15, 2023
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New publication - Values and race equality in mental health
This article draws on philosophical value theory to interpret the lived experience of racial inequalities in mental health, thereby pointing the way to co-production as the basis of improved clinical care.
May 9, 2023

Forthcoming VBP Seminars and Webinars

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Recent VBP Seminars and Webinars

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What’s new? The future of Phenomenological Psychopathology: What’s New? A work-in-progress day for early-career researchers
20 May 2022
Online

Organized by Phenomenology and Mental Health Networkat the Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care St. Catherine’s College, Oxford & Brazilian Society for Phenomeno-Structural Psychopathology International MetaMasters: Phenomenology and Values-based Clinical Care Institute of Philosophy, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin Philosophy of Mental Health Unit at the Department of Social Sciences and the Humanities, Poznan University of Medical Sciences Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences

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Values around Hunger and Poverty
9:30 - 16:00
St Catherine's College or Online

Values are what drive us.  The mention of hunger or of food poverty, is likely to elicit an exposure of our individual values, as these are emotive triggers. But serious topics such as these merit more than just a small instant charitable donation.  For those of us working in health and social care, working with hunger and food poverty is an integral part of our professional business. Not only does hunger drastically restrict the lifestyles and wellbeing of our patients and clients, but it also results in increased pressures on healthcare and social care providers, including third sector organisations.

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Digital Health and Innovation Seminar
October 4, 2023

This seminar is focused on bringing the voices of those affected most by technology change in the NHS into the conversation. We shall discuss positive and negative impacts of innovation on different stakeholders (doctors, nurses, patients, etc) and the future role of stakeholders in both small-scale and large-scale innovation. Using case-studies we will explore the impact of Digital Health and Innovation on healthcare delivery. 

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Phenomenology, Values and Lived Experience
September 13 2023
TBC

The aim of this Advanced Seminar is to draw together insights from phenomenological psychopathology and values-based practice to promote the co-creation of models in mental health care through the contribution of people with lived experiences of mental illness and other mental health challenges. In focusing on the concept of lived experience, sometimes referred to as ‘Expertise by Experience” (or EbE) in the mental health research literature,  aim to explore crossroads of experiences as the result of a dialogue among experts by training (mental health professionals, researchers, social and mental health workers, etc.) and experts by experience, in light of a new consideration of the cardinal role of personalisation in contemporary mental health care.

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Philosophy of Birth Network’ Launch Day
University of Oxford/ Complutense University of Madrid, 5 July 2023, 10am-12.30pm UK time/ 11am-1.30pm CET.
Online and In-person

We will introduce the Network, explore together the vision, and move towards this. This is a Network that exists together and exists for us. The process of exchange, dialogue, and discussion is not a means to an end but the very essence of our Network.

 

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The Asklepion Project – Practical Wisdom and the Holism of Healthcare
June 14, 2023

A potential route to flourishing has been hiding in plain sight. The rod of Asclepius with a coiled snake is a powerful symbol that pervades medical branding. What does it symbolise and what are the values behind it?

The word Asklepion is derived from the name of the Greek God of Healing – Asclepius. The Asklepion Project is seeks to explore the Ancient Greek concept of the Asklepion (Healing centre) as a nexus of ideals to explore the heart, mind and spirit of healthcare. It will look specifically at enacted and embodied phronesis in healthcare professionals and the environments in which they work, contemplating what a practically wise organisation would look like.

Aristotle suggested that Phronesis (Practical Wisdom) is the route to Eudaimonia (flourishing). Initial work has been done hypothesising a connection between wisdom, meaning, purpose, goals of medicine and flourishing. This seminar seeks to promote dialogue and debate about how to perform further practical research and operationalise some of these ideas in real healthcare settings.

It is hoped that it will also inspire others interested in flourishing and professional values and virtues in medicine to expand on this work

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Contact Us

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WikiVBP Reference Library

The wikiVBP Reference Library aims to provide a focused resource of literature and other materials supporting training, research and policy developments in values-based practice.

Please Click Here to go to the library

Key Areas of Collaboration

Core activities of the Centre are based around three inter-linked areas, Education, Regulation and Integration, together with crosscutting themes of Theory and Practice

Read More about Key Areas of Collaboration

Values-based Surgical Care

Values-based practice in surgery is an innovative approach to decision making in surgery, linking science with people.

 

To read more please Click Here

Training Materials and Resources

The CUP Book Series

Cambridge University Press has a VBP book series.

Click here to find out more