Fuse researcher Kerry Brennan-Tovey recently won the Public involvement and engagement award at the SPHR’s Annual Scientific Meeting. Kerry works across several projects in women’s and children’s health. In this blog, Kerry writes about public involvement and engagement as part of the project ‘Supporting Engagement with and Access to Maternity Services’ (SEAMS).
Where I started
I started working with members of the public in research in 2021. I was finishing my PhD, and had started working at Newcastle University on an NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC) project – evaluating the NHS funded tobacco dependence service. This was my first experience of working with members of the public with lived experience in research. I worked closely with a colleague, Dr Angela Wearn and our projects dedicated Public Advisory Group – made up of four members of the public. Our work with public partners in this project allowed us to be awarded the Dialogue and Change award by Investing in Children. I continued to work closely with public partners throughout my research.
Fast-forward two-years, and I started working on a new SPHR project called SEAMS: Supporting Engagement with and Access to Maternity Care.
The project
SEAMS explores the barriers that pregnant women living on low incomes face when accessing maternity care in the North East.
- We mapped all the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations in the North East that offer support to pregnant women living on low incomes.
- We interviewed professionals working in VCSE organisations and healthcare professionals in the NHS about the barriers they perceive pregnant women living on low incomes experience.
- We interviewed pregnant women living on low incomes, about their lived experience of accessing maternity care while living on low income.
- We conducted a cost survey to determine how much it costs for a pregnant woman to attend her hospital appointments.
Getting members of the public involved
I started working with public partners, pregnant woman and those who had recently given birth at the beginning of the project. Working with pregnant women and those who had young children was a new experience for me, but I was eager to learn from them! I knew I needed to go to them – so I headed to several local mum and baby groups, family hubs and foodbanks. I introduced myself, my research project, and made sure everyone knew who I was and why I was there. I would attend the same groups each week for several weeks, to build trust with the women and volunteers. It helped that community experts working in these organisations were very open to having me there and speaking to the women. We developed user-friendly public facing webpages that women could go to for more information about the project, but I also ensured I had printed versions of all information – so not to exclude anyone who didn’t want to use digital services.
I attended mum and baby groups and family hubs and talked to several members of the public about the project, and how they could get involved. Through the mapping work, I was able to identify several VCSE organisations, (including Healthworks and MumSpace), that were keen to be involved in the project and were happy for me to attend their sessions.
Those that agreed to be involved in the project as a public member were invited to take part as their capacity allowed. Often our public partners had young families, and were juggling work, being a mother and attending healthcare appointments, this meant that I needed to be flexible. I would meet to discuss topics related to the project on a 1:1 basis either in-person or via the telephone, and sometimes in the evenings. Often mums did not have time to respond to emails, so communication was via text and calls. I would also go into the community and attend mum and baby groups and speak to a larger number of women. I was inclusive to women who had young children, in ensuring that they felt comfortable to have their children present and be able to tend to them.
Our public partners worked closely with me on several parts of the project:
- They helped name the project ‘SEAMS’. They recommended removing the term ‘poverty’ as it could be stigmatising. Instead, they recommended using language such as ‘low-income’.
- They helped us ensure our language was inclusive, using the term pregnant women/people to ensure that all pregnant people were included in the study
- Our public members reviewed study materials, including information sheets, topic guides and the cost survey. This resulted in us changing questions in both the topic guide and the survey to ensure they were easy to understand and non-stigmatising.
- Our public partners helped design recruitment posters – to make sure they were easy to read, understand and caught the attention of participants. This included adding a photo of me!
- Some of our public partners have also attended our wider research team meetings, to ensure that their voice is being heard when decisions around the project are being made.
What have I learnt
- Be flexible. Making sure that public partners have a variety of means to contact me (i.e., text or phone), making myself available outside of 9–5 if that is easier for them, ensuring that they know they can bring their children to our meetings.
- Building trust. Making sure that I engage with the VCSE organisations in a meaningful way. Engaging with the community experts and volunteers, making sure I am available at several sessions, to build trust with the community.
- Giving back. Making sure that I give back to the community that I have been engaging with. Make sure that I share the changes that have been made because of their input. Sharing these changes and outcomes with the public members but also with the VCSE organisation, community experts and volunteers.
Our next steps
As we finish analysing the data we have collected from the interviews and cost survey (findings will be shared on our webpage soon), we are planning key stakeholder and public member workshops. Where we will share our preliminary findings and receive input and feedback from stakeholders and public members.
We are also working closely with our public partners to ensure that the study findings are shared in ways that are accessible to , examples include podcasts or infographics. It is hoped that the findings will help inform decisions to help improve engagement and access to maternity services for women living on low incomes.
