Case study · Research Well’s own programme
Work SMARTey: one national survey, shared with every audience that needed it.
How a single study of pain among early years staff became a published paper, national coverage and a page for each reader.
- 196practitioners and leaders from across the UK took part in the survey.The first national study of its kind in the UK
- 98%of the early years staff surveyed reported experiencing pain whilst working.Turvill et al., 2024
- 4trade and professional publications have covered the work.Nursery World, Occupational Health Today, Nursery Management Today, Early Years Educator
- 3pages written for different readers: owners, managers and practitioners.
The starting point
A problem people knew about, and no UK figures.
Staff in early years settings described pain as part of working life, but no one had measured how common it was in the UK. Work SMARTey set out to answer that, and to make the answer useful to the people who could act on it.
The finding that mattered most was easy to state and hard to ignore: 98% of the staff we surveyed reported experiencing pain whilst working. The job after that was making sure the right people heard it, in a form they could use.
How it was shared
One study, several routes to the people who matter.
The timeline
From survey to national coverage.
- 2024The paper is published in Safety Science, open access (Turvill, Sheffield and Taylor).
- 2024Coverage in Nursery World, Nursery Management Today and Early Years Educator.
- 2026A two-part series in Occupational Health Today, the magazine of iOH, the Association of Occupational Health and Wellbeing Professionals.
- October 2026The Work SMARTey story page, role pages, and a media and resources page go live.
In print and online
Where the work has appeared.
Occupational Health Today, vol. 33, issue 1, 2026
Occupational Health Today, vol. 33, issue 2, 2026- Nursery World, 2024
- Nursery Management Today, 2024
- Early Years Educator, 2024
Full details and links are on the Work SMARTey media and resources page.
What this shows
Research that reaches the people who can use it.
This is the approach behind our Practice service: start with what each reader needs, and give each one a version that works for them. If you have findings of your own that deserve a wider audience, we would be glad to talk.