“Thames Reach commissioned Becky Rice to undertake a piece of research into the lives of Romanian migrant workers living in encampments in London.  Because of Becky’s strong track record for undertaking quality research in the area of housing and homelessness, we were confident that she would produce a high quality piece of research.   There were very specific challenges associated with this research that required an unusual mix of attributes including:

1. Being able to engage with a group (migrant rough sleepers) who are suspicious of anyone seen to be in a position of authority and to meet them in unconventional places – rough sleeper encampments and nearby cafes.
2. Being confident about working in tandem with a support worker from Thames Reach who had the necessary language skills to be able to translate responses to the questions asked as part of the research
3. Working closely with different stakeholders including Thames Reach as commissioners but also engage with the funders of the research and other stakeholders including migrant rights organisations
4. Producing research that was robust and credible and offered strong recommendations that could be actioned and lead to change
5. Present the research and answer questions at a high profile launch and support its wider dissemination.

As commissioners of the research we were delighted with the way in which Becky rose to the challenge in all five areas.  She contributed greatly to the work of preparing for the release of the research and was prompt and efficient in terms of producing drafts and responding to comments.  The research was extremely well written and presented and Becky achieved, in my view, the right balance in terms of responding to comments on drafts whilst retaining her control and authority as the author of the research.

The encampments research was gratifyingly well received and the recommendations proposed in it are currently being actioned.  We would certainly be interested in engaging Becky in the future to undertake further research for Thames Reach.”

“Becky Rice’s groundbreaking research on predictive risk factors to identify potential rough sleepers has been instrumental to the development and implementation of the ‘No First Night Out’ project piloted in Tower Hamlets, Hackney and City of London. Becky’s distribution of risks into a typology of client profiles is truly innovating and provides a blueprint that many other places around the country are looking to follow. It’s valuable research which will shape thinking on this area for some time to come. Becky has worked closely with the Steering Group throughout from conception to completion, and has shown her versatility, delivering high quality work on time and being adept at working with a diverse range of respondents including frontline staff, statutory and voluntary sector partners, as well as homeless people out in the field.”

“Bench Outreach is one of the leading providers of the Housing First approach in London. As part of the development of this service, we employed Becky to lead the evaluation process. We have been hugely impressed by her work, and she has had a major positive impact on the quality of the service. Our team have described her as knowledgeable, thorough, professional, accessible, open, empathic and genuinely interested. We look forward to continuing this very productive relationship with into the future and extending it to our other services.”

“We asked Becky to come in to produce a monitoring and evaluation report for the first year of our Big Lottery project.  In fact she became a key agent of the change in culture that flowed from that project, helping us to think through a Theory of Change, sharing research material with us, working with us to devise service user feedback and consultation mechanisms, and making a series of recommendations, all in a low key style that got messages across without ruffling feathers.  It is that combination of a wide ranging knowledge and a collaborative approach that makes her so effective.”