Research / Consultancy

Olivia Joyner

Olivia joined the Tavistock Institute in March 2009 as a Researcher and Consultant in Research Methods and Evaluation.

Olivia is confident researcher and evaluator with experience of Theory of Change, Action Research (Action learning Sets), observation, semi-structured interviews, telephone interviews, designing and conducting surveys, aiding programme recruitment, facilitating focus groups, designing methodological toolkits, creating reports and analyzing qualitative (Nvivo) and quantitative (STATA, SPSS) data.

Prior to working at the Tavistock Institute, Olivia worked at the National Economic and Social Forum (Department of the Taoiseach, Ireland). As a Research and Policy Assistant, Olivia helped to identify best practice in the implementation of child literacy and educational equality policies, as outlined in Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools Irish government policy (DEIS). Olivia previously worked at The Geary Institute, University College Dublin, on the evaluation of Ireland's first RCT Early Childhood Intervention. Through this role, Olivia gained project management experience as she led the intervention's Process Evaluation. This role involved designing the evaluation, conducting semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, facilitating focus groups and writing reports. Olivia has also worked on a Department of Justice (Bristol University) research study profiling legal care cases, which allowed Olivia to improve her observation, data entry and report writing skills.

Since joining the Tavistock Institute, Olivia has worked on a wide range of impact and process evaluations. For example, Olivia has completed a case study on Ireland's School Completion Programme for the European Social Fund and Open Method of Coordination EU Commission study (DG Employment). Currently, Olivia is internally coordinating the Evaluation of Local Road Safety with AECOM (DfT), which along with her other projects (Cycling Cities and Towns Evaluation (DfT) and the Assessment of Web Based Patient and Service User Feedback for Quality Improvement in the NHS (Health Foundation funded)) uses Theory of Change. Olivia has also undertaken the role of promoting SPEAK (evaluation and management support software from Nexus, Ireland) in England.

Olivia is a pro active team player; writing for the Tavistock's E Bulletin and being a member of the Social Research Association's Events Committee. Olivia holds a MSc in Social Legal Studies and a BSc in Sociology from the University of Bristol.