Working together on research involving vulnerable or disadvantaged parents in the first 1001 days of life
What's the issue?
Parents who are vulnerable or disadvantaged face significant barriers to getting involved in research, so their experiences, perspectives and outcomes are often under-represented.
Researchers may approach voluntary and community sector organisations (VCSOs) to recruit parents as research participants or as Patient and Public Involvement representatives. There are challenges for researchers and small-to-medium VCSOs who are working together in this way.
What did we do?
Researchers and VCSO representatives took part in a series of online workshops to share their experiences of challenges and ideas for solutions. We've published our findings and recommendations as a briefing for VCSOs, researchers and funders:
The things we've highlighted are:
- Understand the challenges
- Good practice suggestions for VCSOs, researchers and funders
- Example checklist for VCSOs to assess research requests
- Tips for researchers to support parents as Patient and Public Involvement representatives
