Recruiting and hiring peer researchers—individuals with direct experience of a phenomenon under investigation—is widely acknowledged as a best practice in community-based health research. However, there is a notable gap in the existing research literature when it comes to understanding the experiences of peer researchers themselves.
This January 25th webinar shared insights from a participatory, qualitative research project concentrating on four intersecting communities often engaged in peer research:
- Mental health service user communities
- Communities of people who use drugs
- Trans and non-binary communities
- Racialized communities
Our discussion underscored shared experiences across these communities, such as exposure to intersecting systemic oppressions. Drawing upon the project’s findings, the researchers advocated for a more reflexive and critically informed approach to applying peer research methodologies, particularly for health researchers involved in collaborative projects with service user communities.
Live event date: Thursday, January 25, 2024
This webinar has concluded, and a recording is not available.
Resources
- Better practices for participatory research (PDF)
- ‘I will play this tokenistic game, I just want something useful for my community’: experiences of and resistance to harms of peer research (PDF)
Intended audience
Researchers and those interested in peer research across universities, hospitals and allied sectors.
Learning Objectives
After watching, participants will be able to:
- identify some of the harms that can be experienced by peer researchers through their involvement as staff in research projects
- discuss how people who are hired as peer researchers experience these harms based on their lived experience with the mental health system and
- reflect on strategies to try to mitigate these harms.
Presenters
Merrick Pilling (he/him) is an assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the author of Queer & Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice and co-editor of Interrogating Psychiatric Narratives of Madness: Documented Lives.
Lori Ross (she/her) is an associate professor in the Division of Social and Behavioural Health Sciences, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and an interdisciplinary scholar in 2SLGBTQ+ health. Link to: https://lgbtqhealth.ca/team/#LoriRoss
Moderator
Lucy Costa (she/her) is the deputy executive director of the Empowerment Council, an organization dedicated to representing service users' scholarship, voice and rights.
About the organizers
The Empowerment Council (EC) is a patient advocacy organization working to empower the collective voice of service users of the mental health and addiction systems. The EC is a leader in enacting systemic change for mental health and addiction survivors and clients, primarily in the GTA. We are a service-user organization funded by CAMH but take its direction entirely from service users.
Provincial Support System Program (PSSP)
The Provincial System Support Program (PSSP) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) works with communities, service providers, government, and system partners to move evidence to action and create sustainable change in Ontario's mental health and addictions system. With expertise in implementation, knowledge mobilization (KMb), evaluation, equity, lived experience engagement, and data management, PSSP is on the ground across the province, collaborating with a wide variety of health and social care partners to build a stronger, more equitable and more accessible mental health and substance use care system.