Engaging “seldom heard” groups in research and intervention development: Offender mental health

• Published in: Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy Vol. 21; no. 6; pp. 1104 - 1110
• Main Authors: Taylor, Charlie, Gill, Laura, Gibson, Andy, Byng, Richard, Quinn, Cath
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.12.2018; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Adequacy; Alcohol; Citizen participation; Cognitive style; Collaboration; Community organizations; Cooperative Behavior; Crime; Criminal justice system; Criminals; Data collection; Dissemination; health research; Health Services Research; Humans; Intervention; intervention development; Judicial system; Marginalized groups; Medical research; Mental Health; Mental health services; offender health; Openness; Original Research Paper; Original Research Papers; Participation; patient and public involvement; Patient communication; Patient Participation; Peer Group; Peers; Prisoners; Public involvement; R&D; Research & development; Research funding; Research Personnel; Researchers; seldom heard; Skills; United Kingdom > UK; offender health; seldom heard; health research; intervention development; patient and public involvement; mental health
• ISSN: 1369-6513; 1369-7625; 1369-7625
• DOI: 10.1111/hex.12807

Background People subject to the criminal justice system often have substantially different life‐experiences from the general population. Patient and public involvement (PPI) of “seldom heard” groups provides valuable experiential knowledge, enhancing research. Objective To share our jointly developed techniques to ensure the meaningful engagement and contribution of people with lived experience of the criminal justice system (PWLECJS) in research, trial science, intervention theory development and dissemination. Methods Commitment to adequate financial resources, appropriate staff skills and adequate time were combined with previous learning. PWLECJS were approached through local community organizations. A group was established and met fortnightly for ten months in an unthreatening environment and had a rolling membership. Ongoing engagement was promoted by the group taking responsibility for the rules, interactive and accessible activities, feeding back tangible impacts, ongoing contact, building a work ethic, joint celebrations, sessions with individual academic researchers and pro‐actively managed endings. Results The Peer Researchers contributed to study documents, training academic researchers, research data collection and analysis, intervention delivery and theory development and trial science. The Peer Researchers gained in confidence and an improved sense of self‐worth. The Academic Researchers gained skills, knowledge and an increased openness to being challenged. Discussion and conclusions PWLECJS can be meaningful included in health research and intervention development. The key elements required are listed. Challenges included differences in priorities for timescales and dissemination, resource limitations and the use of Peer Researchers’ names. Further research is required to understand what might be of relevance for other “seldom heard” groups.