Co-design living labs: can we embed co-production in the mental health research continuum?

Talk Code: 
P1.08
Presenter: 
Victoria Palmer
Co-authors: 
James Gunn, Roxanne Kritharidis, Amy Coe, Konstancja Densley, Maria Potiriadis, Kali Godbee, Susie Fletcher, Matthew Lewis, Jane M. Gunn
Author institutions: 
The Department of General Practice, Melbourne Medical School, The University of Melbourne

Problem

Co-production is stressed across the research continuum yet finding meaningful ways to embed participation from inception to translation is a critical challenge. Engagement has been critiqued in the literature for its tokenism and a tendency to follow instrumentalist models that reflect largely one-way transactions. To address this and foster co-production with lived-experience at the centre, we established a Co-design Living Lab model within the Integrated Mental Health Research Program in Victoria, Australia.

Approach

The Co-design Living Lab model is a partnership approach that brings together people with lived-experience with industry and government, and uses researcher facilitated co-design processes and tools for innovation. We aim to engage people across the research continuum. There is a good deal of waste in research currently. Thousands of people take part in research but when studies are completed, our relationships with participants end. As part of study close out procedures we recruit people to our living labs registry. Joining is optional and voluntary. No further research data is collected about lab participants but the registry holds details of age, gender, geographic location, mental health conditions and the details of studies participants were involved in. Depending on our research study stage and needs, people are invited by email, SMS or mail to take part in different labs as required. Invitations give a brief overview of the purpose of the lab and who is likely to be in attendance. Examples of labs include dialogue around research question generation, or brainstorming ways to overcome recruitment challenges, co-design of interventions and prototypes, working with government partners to contribute to policy formation.

Findings

Our Co-Design Living Lab has a registry of over 500+ people from our completed research studies. Ethical considerations have emerged from the establishment, facilitation and coordination of the living labs which require further attention. These include: consideration of how to build researcher capacity in facilitation that is informed by narrative and participatory approaches, design thinking and co-design activities; how to ensure co-design remains tailored to different group's histories, contexts and needs; attention to preparatory work for participants in terms of setting boundaries within the group as people begin with not knowing each other and form new relationships from coming together in the living labs. Additional issues include resourcing the registries, coordinating communications with lab participants in a regular manner, geographical location of participants to come to labs, and ensuring feedback from the outcomes of different labs.

Consequences

There is a need to move engagement beyond the research agenda-setting and protocol-development stages of research and to consider the skills, resources and models that can facilitate lived-experience involvement in data collection and analysis. Australia has a rich history of co-production, but lags behind in lived-experience researcher capacity development and models.

Submitted by: 
Victoria Palmer
Funding acknowledgement: 
The Integrated Mental Health Research Program has received consecutive years of funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government, beyondblue and other non-government charitable organisations.