We are seeking members of the public to help inform our research project on Health Visiting services during COVID. If you live in the UK and have had a baby or looked after a young child since March 2020, you may be able to help us by sharing your experiences, listening to our research plans and findings, and identifying important lessons.
This research is about learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. We will focus on how people delivered and received health visiting services during that time.
Health visiting services are a core part of child health programmes for children aged 0 to 5. They help to ensure every child has the best start in life. They include home visits and reach all new babies and their families. Health visiting services are organised and delivered differently across the UK. But the goal is the same: to improve outcomes for children.
Our research project is a ‘realist review’. This involves finding and studying any evidence that has described changes and impacts during the pandemic. When put together, the evidence will tell us how the pandemic has affected services, service providers, and families. We are interested in learning lessons about the impact of COVID-19 – both good and bad – on health visiting services. This is so we can recommend improvements in how to organise and deliver them in the future. Improvements might help to make services more efficient, more effective, and fairer. This will help health visitors and others to deliver the best possible support to babies, young children, and their families.
What is involved?
A group of about 8 people from across the UK, who have had a baby or looked after a child under 5 during the pandemic, will advise our small research team. Mums, Dads and other carers are equally welcome. We would like to hear about your impressions or experience of the health visiting service, whether you had contact with the service or not during this time. We are interested in what you think is important, what has worked well, and what has worked less well, in health visiting service delivery during the pandemic.
We will use this information to help us to shape our research project. First, we would like your input to help us decide what might be important to include in our review. Later, we will show you our emerging findings and ask for your feedback. Finally, we will ask for your opinion on how best to share these findings with others, especially with other members of the public.
We will select 8 people based on where they live, as well as other factors like how many children they look after and their ethnicity. This is to try to ensure a range of different ‘voices’ in the group. If you are selected to take part, we will invite you to join up to 4 meetings between September 2022 and October 2023. During these meetings, you will chat with members of our research team and other members of the group for around one hour. We will try to organise the meetings at a time that is convenient for everyone who takes part. The meetings will take place online, using the video conferencing software Zoom. This is to enable people from across the UK to attend without having to travel. We will make sure that taking part does not cost you anything. For a couple of the meetings, we may send you something to read in advance, but we promise to keep it short.
Is my input confidential?
During the meetings, we will take notes and will ask for your permission to make a recording. However, our conversations, notes, and any recordings will remain confidential. We will not quote anything you say in any project reports.
Do I have to take part?
Participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do decide to take part, you may stop participating at any point and do not have to give any reasons for doing so.
What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?
One disadvantage is your time commitment. If you are involved from the beginning (September 2022) to the end (October 2023), we estimate this time commitment will be no more than 6 hours in total. Another potential disadvantage is that you might find it difficult to revisit what could have been a difficult period in your life. We intend the group to be a friendly and supportive environment.
What are the benefits of taking part?
Your contributions during the meetings will help us improve what we find from our review. For example, you might highlight issues which we had previously overlooked. You can also shape any guidance we produce based on our findings, through your feedback and advice.
You will be supported throughout by our team member Maddy Bell, who herself has lived experience of parenting under-fives in the pandemic. We will also provide you with relevant training related to public involvement in research if you would like it.
Who can take part?
To get involved, you will need to be:
· A parent or carer of a young child (aged under 5 years).
· Living in the UK (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, or England).
· Able to join meetings on Zoom, either via a smart phone, tablet or computer with internet access.
If you are interested in helping us but are not sure if you can, please get in touch and we can discuss it.
What will happen to the findings of the research project?
With your participation and input, we will produce guidance and resources that will help to improve health visiting services. We will share these via presentations, newsletters, websites, and blogs, as well as journals, conferences, and relevant meetings/seminars.
Project details
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) have funded this project through their Health Services and Delivery Research Programme (NIHR134986). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Stirling, Kent and Oxford. The team includes Erica Gadsby (project lead) and Emma King (both at Stirling), Sally Kendall (Kent), Geoff Wong and Claire Duddy (Oxford), and Madeline Bell (public involvement lead).
Reimbursement
As a thank you for your help with this project, we will send each participant a £50 Love2shop voucher for each meeting they attend.
Date required
Sign up is open until 17th August 2022.
If you are selected to take part, we will invite you to join up to 4 meetings between September 2022 and October 2023.
Organisation
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Contact
If you are interested, please fill in the form here: https://stirling.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/r-rehope
If you have any questions, please email rrehope@stir.ac.uk, or text/phone Emma King on 07714 528845.