Service users & volunteers help University researchers
We’re helping the University of Southampton with a community engagement project about the findings it has made in medical research (October 2024).
We’re collaborating with the University and Southampton Voluntary Services so our service users and volunteers can participate in a series of community research sessions to share their thoughts on the discoveries.
Working in partnership
Annie, our Manager, says: “We’re delighted to be working in partnership with the team from University of Southampton’s Faculty of Medicine and with our good friends at Southampton Voluntary Services, led by Development Worker, Rebecca Kinge.
“We’ve now hosted three sessions for our service users and volunteers at both St Patrick’s Church Hall and Freemantle & Shirley Community Centre, providing transport for those that need it. The overarching purpose of this series of events is for the University to build trusted connections within the community to discuss health and social care research, in step with its Civic University ethos and, also, consistent with its need to involve diverse and often overlooked voices in medical research.
Crucial voices
“We were able to successfully facilitate the necessary introductions to these crucial voices, people who wouldn’t normally get involved. The events have also acted as an important social activity for our service users. Every session has been great fun with some wonderful games involved too that got everyone laughing and we provided lunch from CommuniBakes, our community-based bakery in Shirley, which gave them the chance to eat together as well.
Get involved
“We’re now recruiting our next cohort for November and would like to hear from anyone keen to be involved. Plus, we’re very happy to chat to any other researchers who would like to connect with our service users and volunteers and get essential grassroots feedback for their projects.”
The latest September session was attended by Professor Lucy Green Faculty Head of Engagement and Kate Bittlestone Research and Enterprise Manager from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton. They were joined by Dr Kinda Ibrahim who was looking for feedback on ‘taking multiple medicines, polypharmacy’ and Kate Henaghan-Sykes on ‘eczema care’.
Great discussions
Lucy explains: “Through these sessions we’ve got to know people and have had some great discussions between University researchers and community members around solutions to a range of health issues.
“The kind and trusted network of support that Communicare offers has been essential in planning these research sessions. They’ve provided a warm and friendly space for us to hear what some of our big health research findings mean to people and their families. We laughed together, ate together and got down to some serious discussion.
Enjoying finding out
“What has been particularly brilliant is how people are enjoying finding out about the research and the researchers are getting perspectives they can build back into their work.”
The sessions are part of an ongoing commitment by the University of Southampton in partnership with the NHS to building trusted connections with communities and improving the diversity of voice in the health and social care research.
Community research
Rob Kurn, CEO of Southampton Voluntary Services, commented: “Community Research initiatives such as this demonstrate the best practice and vision for inclusive research being developed in Southampton through partnership. This is enabling local people to be involved in research that can impact on their own life experiences.”
Find out more
To find out more or to see how we can help you with your research project, please get in touch.
Photo with thanks to Tim Kenyon Photography.