Giles is an Assistive Technology Practitioner at Norfolk County Council working on the front line of social care, supporting older people to remain independent and safe within their own communities. His remit covers Telecare, digital monitoring devices and GPS trackers. His specialism is the deployment and management of GPS trackers, and he is the delivery lead for the department.
The seeds for his research journey were planted ten years ago when he participated in a pilot for GPS tracking equipment to monitor offenders for the Ministry of Justice Electronic Monitoring contract. Giles worked in a range of roles in Social Care before joining the Assistive Technology team, where he quickly gravitated to the GPS tracker offering. This led to supporting a research study where Norfolk County Council collaborated with the University of East Anglia's Professor Michael Hornberger. Giles has also contributed to the University of Waterloo's Noelannah Neubauer’s thesis in developing the Canadian Guidelines for Safe Wandering.
More recently he has been a Research Associate for the NIHR funded SCRiPT (Social Care Research in Practice Teams) study, contributing to Chris Metcalf's research team. This involvement inspired Giles to apply to be a Research Fellow, to further his understanding of the research process. Giles aim is to support service users, particularly those living with dementia, by mapping the reasons for the adoption and non-retention of GPS trackers.
Contact: giles.conneely@norfolk.gov.uk