A Blueprint for Involvement: Reflections of lived experience co-researchers and academic researchers on working collaboratively

Abstract

Plain English summary The Blueprint study worked with young co-researchers with lived experience to explore services in England and Wales for children and young people with common mental health problems like depression, anxiety and self-harm. Blueprint aimed to find out what services exist, how children, young people and their families find out about and access these services, what the services actually do, and whether they are helpful and offer value for money. Blueprint worked closely with McPin, a charity that works to support young people with lived experience get involved in research. Together we developed a training and mentoring package to support the co-researcher’s development and their preparation for the role which included research interviews with service users, parents/carers and service providers and data analysis. The co-researchers, research team and McPin worked together to reflect on the successes and challenges of this approach to research and the challenges of carrying out this work during a global pandemic. We have summarised what we have learnt about how best to enable and support co-researcher involvement to provide guidance to other researchers.

Keywords

• Patient and public involvement
• Co-researcher
• Co-production
• Lived experience
• Qualitative research
• Mental health