An economically sustainable programme for real time tracking and predicting resilience, resistance, burnout among frontline social care professionals and community organisation workers.

During austerity in the UK, there was an increased shift towards Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) to tackle inequalities and promote wellbeing by identifying and strengthening existing assets(1). During the COVID-19 pandemic, community organisations played key roles in supporting vulnerable populations, including those experiencing social disadvantage(2). As a result, community organisation workers were before and became even more overstretched during and since the pandemic(3), withincreased demand creating crisis management and resilience challenges(4). Similarly, social care sectors have among the highest levels of stress and mental health sickness absences of all UK professions (5), with overall wellbeing and work-related quality of lifemarkedly declining during the pandemic(6). A review of studies aiming to reduce burnout among social workers revealed poor quality without theoretical grounding or longitudinal approaches(7). This project aims to prevent burnout, support coping capacities and workforce management practices among social care staff and community organisation workers by exploring three inter-related factors linked with wellbeing: resilience, resistance, and burnout. Resilience is defined as an act of "bouncing back" to regain control in the face of adversity(8,9), while resistance is defined as anact of "pushing back" to create safety and protection during times of adversity(10). Resilience and resistance are usually studied separately as opposite (either/or) responses to adversities(11) rather than as co-existing. Few if any studies examine resilience and resistance in 'social spaces', that is, online environments accessed through digital media/platforms featuring real-time narratives of individuals interpreting their environments. Using the emergent methodology in the field of sociology, social sensing , a study carried out by Advisory Group members Singh, Baumann, Guo and project co-lead Boyd conceptualised, operationalised and validated the constructs of frontline resilience (FResil) and frontline resistance (FResis) (12,13,14). Their study found that FResis has a significant negative association with burnout (overwhelmed by adversity and stress); both FResil and FResis are crucial for preventing burnout, especially during disruptions(15). Insights into the inter-relations among FResil, FResis, and burnout will inform the co-development and testing of a real-time and predictive index and visual dashboard, shaped from the outset by stakeholder conversations and triangulated data sources. Thisproject also aims to develop a protocol for an economic evaluation strategy to evidence the economic impact on social care and community organisations of the FResil, FResis and burnout dashboard. This protocol will involve adapting the Care Quality Evaluation (CQE) platform (qualityevaluation.com; 30) for use with social care and community organisations to enhance service delivery, improve efficiency, and provide insights into societal economic growth. To fulfil these research aims, this project will explore the following research questions: What are the post-pandemic dynamics of FResil, FResis and burnout among social care staff and community organisation workers in two regions in the UK? What is the optimal process for collecting, presenting, and integrating data to support real-time decision-making and predictive modelling that improves efficiency and outcomes? What effectiveness, efficiency, and equity metrics are essential for social care and community organisations to enhance service delivery and outcomes?