Public Involvement and Engagement ran through every aspect of the Kent Research Partnership.
Lived Experience Working Group
Led by Gina Walton (Kent County Council) and John Potts (lay co-applicant), with support from Dr Amanda Bates (University of Kent), we established a Public Involvement and Engagement Working Group, consisting of 12 members of the public (people using social care and their informal carers).
Meet the Group: Kent Research Partnership’s Lived Experience Working Group
The Working Group jointly agreed its values and principles and how it would support the aims of the Partnership. The Group was involved in numerous areas of Partnership work and Group members:
- were experts by experience, contributing to Partnership activities and events
- were founding members of the Communities of Practice (CoPs)
- designed and commissioned training to help Working Group members build confidence and actively support Partnership activities
- contributed to outputs and resources
- reviewed Fellowship pilot projects and Partnership funding applications
- supported wider dissemination of research findings
- contributed to the evaluation of the Partnership as a whole and of individual work streams
- made links and shared information, including a blog shared via the Think Local Act Personal website
Study Steering Committee
Partnership development and activity was overseen by a Study Steering Committee which included 3 independent members with relevant lived experience (a person drawing on care and support, an informal carer and a member of the public). These lay steering committee members were supported by Dr Amanda Bates and Professor Ann-Marie Towers.
Support and training
All Partnership Working Group and Steering Group members were offered training to support them in their roles. This included a one-day training course offered by the Innovation Delivery Team at Kent County Council to help Public Involvement and Engagement representatives feel more confident in multi-stakeholder meetings and events.
Evaluation and experience sharing
Working Group members were involved in evaluating Public Involvement Engagement in the Partnership. They kept a record of all relevant meetings and decisions, as well as a log of involvement and contributions to Partnership aims and work streams. Their experiences of being in the Group were evaluated by an (anonymous) annual survey and the Group reflected on the feedback given and made changes if/as needed. Working Group members also contributed to the pilot of an NIHR sponsored evaluation tool called a ‘Cube Evaluation’. This is a digital web-based four-dimensional framework developed to map the quality of PPI experience.
Working Group members contributed to outputs and dissemination, writing blogs on their experiences and speaking at conferences and other events. The public involvement contributors, Researchers in Residence and wider research team each wrote a reflection of their experience of Public Involvement and Engagement, the impact it has had on the project and if/how it could have been improved. These accounts and perspectives formed the basis of a co-authored journal article currently in submission.
Public Involvement and Engagement in the Kent Research Partnership
Read the Role Description for members of the Working Group.