This week we had an opportunity to see how some of our participants feel about research after actively taking part in the CognoSpeak study. This sister project to CognoSpeak is called ‘Co-evaluation of working together’ and involves a series of workshops and a co-created short film.
The project was inspired by reflections of the Israac Community Research Associates and the CognoSpeak research team on our experiences working together on this project - for us as a team and for the wider Somali community. This partnership was born from an introduction to this community via NIHR Devices for Dignity Med Tech Cooperative who developed roles for 2 Community Research Associates from the Israac centre and included funding for these roles within the CognoSpeak research funding application.
The first of these workshops took place on Tuesday May 30th in Israac Somali Community Association. A range of materials was co-created in order to spark conversations reflecting on the journey over the past 2 years, from a community which had felt new to health research to one which now regularly takes part in a range of health research projects and now has Israac community members as funded researchers as part of the CognoSpeak team.
Pictured: finalising preparations for the event
The event was co-designed by Lise Sproson and Sarah Goodwin (NIHR Devices for Dignity) Muse Jama and Sahra Abdi (Israac Somali Community Association) and Gemma Wheeler (NIHR CYPMedTech)
During the event, some of the participants expressed that in the past they felt that they had not had any opportunities to take part in research, some had concerns that taking part in research was a waste of time, and that they did not feel included or listened to or valued.
We talked through experiences they had had more recently, working as partners on CognoSpeak and how these experiences have helped develop interest from the wider community for taking part in other research projects.
Participants reported that now they feel valued and find taking part in studies interesting and beneficial to their community. We will be writing up in detail the findings from this workshop and also co-creating a short documentary film (with Yasin Hersi and Brett Chapman) and we look forward to sharing these with you.
Pictured: Some of the visual outcomes of the project capturing the change in the community’s feelings about taking part in research
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