Learning about the participatory methods the hard way

Cherish – Co-developments of holistic, personalised support to improve experiences and outcomes, for those aiming for a spontaneous labour and birth

Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research at the School of Health and Psychological Science, City, University of London welcome Michelle Quashi and Mandie Scamell to discuss their findings on the challenges many researchers meet when using participatory methods, as part of the research seminar series.

Abstract

Despite participatory methods being high up on the agenda for health research, how best to achieve meaningful and effective co-design continues to present challenges for many researchers.

This presentation provides a candid account of what the Cherish programme development project team has done in their effort to include the voices of key stakeholders in their work, including service users, clinicians, managers and policy makers.

The hurdles that have tripped us up along the way will be explained, along with the recommendations that arise as much out of those hurdles as our successes.

About the speakers

Michelle Quashi – Service user co-investigator and maternity improvement campaigner.

Michelle has spent the past 10 years working to improve maternity care and has founded as well as been involved in several campaigns. Her work is inspired by lived experiences of individuals accessing maternity care and the births of her own four children.

She has a particular interest in Human Rights in Childbirth, and informed decision-making to ensure a personalised approach to maternity care and she believes care can only be determined as safe by those receiving care.

Michelle is the founder of The Women's Voices Conference, a platform designed for Women to share their maternity experience, held at King’s College London in 2016 and was the first service user-led conference to be hosted at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology in 2017.

She has an extensive track record of influencing transformational change in all areas of maternity, at local, regional and national levels in the UK, for example, in education, recruitment, policy, service provision, public-facing information and training resources, service user engagement, and cultural change.

Michelle worked on the UK’s National Maternity Transformation Programme with the Choice and Personalisation workstream and co-produced the national Personalised Care and Support Planning guidance published in March 2021.

Her determination and perseverance saw the term ‘Shared Decision Making’ be replaced with ‘Informed Decision Making‘ in national maternity literature and policy guidance.

Mandie Scamell – Joint principal investigator, midwife and maternal health researcher.

Dr Mandie Scamell is a medical anthropologist and midwife specialising in risk and the maternity services in the UK. She is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at City, University of London.

Her main area of work has been on midwifery care in the UK, with particular interests in clinical governance and institutionalised risk management technologies and in the culture and organisation of maternity care. Visit Dr Mandie Scamell's profile page.