In November VCSE organisations and academic researchers came together in Carlisle to learn about the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Community Engagement Toolkit. Building on a first event held in Newcastle in July, Cumbria CVS, VONNE and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) partners invited organisations working with communities in North Cumbria to share learning from their experiences of collaboration for health and wellbeing research. The Carlisle event also aimed to co-produce practical ideas to support greater partnership working for health and wellbeing research in our region. If you’re not already familiar with the NIHR Community Engagement Toolkit, you can view and download it here.
Throughout the morning, we heard from VCSE and research partners who generously shared their experiences of working together with communities in North Cumbria, including some of the challenges and opportunities these collaborations have brought. A clear thread through all the presentations was that successful partnerships are based on strong relationships, underpinned by practice that ensures people are respected, their contributions are valued, and research (topic and design) is led by community need.
Discussions saw delegates using their collective experiences to develop ideas for practical tools that could support people to apply the NIHR Toolkit in practice. Some fantastic ideas emerged, including developing a set of key questions for VCSE organisations to ask researchers who approach them about a project; a platform for sharing research opportunities and to help potential partners connect with the right people; and a jargon buster of key terms, organisation names and acronyms.
“As a researcher it’s important to work with partner organisations. They have the expertise, the trust and the relationships with people in communities. They can help guide and advise you. I’m embedded in four different communities - I attend community events and I’ve become a trustee of a local organisation. It demonstrates your commitment to the community.” Suzanne Wilson, Research Fellow at University of Central Lancashire.
“You might think it’s a one way process of us introducing access to our families for research purposes but we’ve taken away a huge amount. We’ve now got a connection within research for future work we want to do. It also gave us ideas, tools and methodology that we can apply ourselves. So, there’s a lot of two-way benefit.” Deborah Royston, Chief Officer at Cumbria Family Support.
There was a clear sense that creating and sustaining equitable partnerships around research involves a lot of hard work and commitment. When managed with thought, care, and integrity, the benefits for the research organisations and communities involved can be far reaching.
Work to enhance and support application of the NIHR Community Engagement Toolkit in our region will continue into 2024. To express an interest in getting involved or to learn more about VONNE's VCSE Health and Wellbeing Research Partnerships work, visit our VCSE Research Partnerships webpage .