Lived Experienced Research Ambassador

What is our role?

Our goal is for everyone who uses the Trust’s services to get the chance to take part in research. It is well known that service users benefit enormously from research, and we are lucky to be building on solid foundations at the Trust since it is the top mental health Trust in England for the number service users involved in research! However, there is still patchy participation in research across the Trust and we are committed to improving access and understanding the barriers to underrepresented groups.

Saskia Evans Perks, Lived Experience Research Ambassador Saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk 

Some of the reasons to contact us

If you have lived experience – you are our community! I want to speak with as many of you as possible to raise awareness of research opportunities and to understand the barriers that might stop you participating in research.

If you are a clinician – you are often the conduit for offering research to service users, so please reach out if you’d like to discuss the benefits of offering research to service users or to help me understand what would help you make this offer routinely.

If you are a clinical researcher – you provide the service that we are promoting. I want to work with you to help you reach and meet the needs of diverse service users across the Trust. Please get in touch if you want to know more about the service user networks that exist across the Trust and its community.

If you are a Research Champion – you are our partners in promoting the benefits and importance of research with clinicians. I want to support the growth of the research champion network and represent the service user voice as a motivator for your work. Let me know how I can help!

Research club

The Research Club is a collaboration between the SLaM recovery college and Lived Experience Research Ambassadors. It was developed to ensure that research at the Trust and the IoPPN, King's College London is discussed with service users, staff, and all at Trust. We aim to ensure that our research is accessible to our service users.

The sessions involve researchers talking about their findings and how the research has shed light on how improve their current work and treatments as clinicians. A participant of the study often attends and explains what it was like to take part in the research study.

Email saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk for more information.

Enrol via the Recovery College website: https://www.slamrecoverycollege.co.uk/enrol.html

The online meeting is held monthly. The upcoming dates for 2025 are:

Thursday 27 February, 2-3pm, Online

Title: The MORE Project - Tackling Inequalities in Maternal Health Outcomes: Co-production, Participatory Research and Community Action 

Speaker: Vita Moltedo, co-founder of Maternity Voices Matter and researcher, ARC South London 

Vita is a co-founder of Maternity Voices Matter and she took part in a pilot project on maternity care funded by the Co-Production Collective. At ARC South London Vita is an active member and contributor of the Maternity and Perinatal Mental Health research theme and the Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement network.

Vita is currently collaborating with researchers from King’s College London as a Peer Researcher, a Visiting Researcher and a PPIE contributor on various projects funded by the NIHR, among which the MORE (Maternity Opportunities Research Engagement), which uses participatory research methods and co-production to involve members of the public in research and to amplify their voices.

Session summary:

The MORE [Maternity Opportunities for Research Engagement] Project was co-produced by a group of researchers and peer researchers part of the Maternity and perinatal mental health theme, ARC South London, with the aim of hearing and amplifying the voices of people experiencing pregnancy, maternity and birth in the Lambeth area of South London.
Vita will describe the process of co-designing and co-producing the project through its various stages and the use of participatory research methods (such as PhotoVoice) to facilitate aspects of communication, expression and storytelling for participants and researchers.

Service User Research Advisory Group

Service User Research Advisory Group (SURAG) aims to better understand the needs of the people who take part in research. It is an open space for service users to talk about their experiences of being research participants. It ensures that services users, as experts by experience, can advise on the research, engagement and dissemination activities. Attendees are encouraged to reflect on personal experience to ensure their voices are heard and can shape the design and implementation of the research locally.

 The meeting is held monthly on MS Teams 2pm - 3pm and is open to all Trust service users and staff with lived experience of menta health difficulties. To join, email: saskia.perks@slam.nhs.uk

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