Research Assistant - PATHWAYS

at  Kings College London

Job id: 100085. Salary: £38,232 - £39,866 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.
Posted: 19 November 2024. Closing date: 10 December 2024.
Business unit: IoPPN. Department: Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Contact details: Professor Emily Simonoff. emily.simonoff@kcl.ac.uk
Location: Denmark Hill Campus. Category: Research.
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About us
King’s College London offers an intellectually stimulating environment in which to work, where staff are dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and learning, in the service of society. We are a multi-faculty institution, providing high-quality teaching, research and innovation across the sciences, humanities, medicine, law, dentistry, and social sciences. As a member of the Russell Group, an association of leading UK research-intensive universities, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards in research and education. King’s is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe, and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres spread across its three teaching hospitals.
King’s is one of the top 20 universities in the world (2014/15 QS World University Rankings). We are the fourth oldest university in England and based in the heart of London, King’s has more than 26,000 students from nearly 140 countries, and more than 7,000 employees.
The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is the only such Department in the UK, with 7 professors, 1 Reader and 6 Senior Lecturers comprising its substantive academic staff. The Department will shortly move into the Pears Maudsley Centre, a £90M purpose-built clinical research facility co-locating the academic department and clinical colleagues from South London and Maudsley NGS Foundation Trust, with the purpose of enhancing translational research designed to improve the mental health of children and young people. Its new Clinical Research Facility with cutting-edge equipment offers research opportunities that are unparalleled in the UK and Europe. The PATHWAYS study will be based in the Pears Maudsley Centre.
About the role
We are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic researcher for the high-profile PATHWAYS research programme on children and young people attending the UK Gender Services because of gender incongruence. PATHWAYS is a research programme with multiple workstreams whose aim is to understand young people with gender incongruence and assess the risks and benefits of interventions. The UK is currently the only country world-wide to undertake such comprehensive research in order to better understand best care for children and young people with gender incongruence. The researcher will work primarily on the observational study and clinical trial and will play a key role in recruiting young people and their families into the studies, and in the retention for longer-term follow-up. The research programme is multi-centre across the UK; although the researcher will be based in London, they will need to work closely across centres and may need to visit other centres and/or participants at home or in clinics.

Key Responsibilities of the role:

• Work closely with Trial Managers, and Research Fellows to ensure adherence to study protocols. This includes participant recruitment, data collection from participants and from clinic records at the various sites. Longitudinal data collection will need to be completed within specified time windows. This includes follow-up calls and appointments for any missing data.
• Liaise with Trial Managers and Primary Investigators at all sites to problem-solve around any issues that arise at clinical sites.
• Visit clinical sites to extract research data from clinical records.
• Provide continuity to participants and their parents with regard to PATHWAYS research through excellent communication, including with their clinical teams should this be appropriate.
• Assist Trial Managers and Research Associates in providing regular reports on study progress to the investigators and the oversight committees.

This post involves working closely with a large team and the post-holder will be expected to work exclusively/most of the time in person, with base at the Denmark Hill campus but visiting other sites in the country as required.
This is a full-time post (35hours/week) and you will be offered a fixed term contract for 3 years with the possibility of extension. The earliest start date is 1st of February 2025.
About you
To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• BSc in an area related to the cross-over between physical and mental health (or pending results)
• Experience in quantitative methods research including analytical techniques and/or qualitative methods
• Experience of using a research database
• Research or clinical experience with children or young people with mental health or physical health concerns
• Excellent attention to detail
• Excellent interpersonal skills to develop and maintain effective working relationships with both academics and individuals recruited to the study.
• Strong planning and organisational skills, including ability to work to and meet firm deadlines.
• Demonstrable experience in complying with data protection regulations / GDPR protocol

Desirable criteria

• Experience of longitudinal data collection
• Experience working on clinical trials and or directly with clinicians
• Experience in administration of cognitive assessments
• Experience working on multi-site studies
• Experience in writing and publishing research papers in high-quality journals

Downloading a copy of our Job Description
Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “

• Work closely with Trial Managers, and Research Fellows to ensure adherence to study protocols. This includes participant recruitment, data collection from participants and from clinic records at the various sites. Longitudinal data collection will need to be completed within specified time windows. This includes follow-up calls and appointments for any missing data.
• Liaise with Trial Managers and Primary Investigators at all sites to problem-solve around any issues that arise at clinical sites.
• Visit clinical sites to extract research data from clinical records.
• Provide continuity to participants and their parents with regard to PATHWAYS research through excellent communication, including with their clinical teams should this be appropriate.
• Assist Trial Managers and Research Associates in providing regular reports on study progress to the investigators and the oversight committees