Background
Engaging with the community is more than a tick-box on a funding application, it is a vital way to ensure that outputs lead to tangible outcomes. Partnerships with people with lived experience and community members is imperative when developing policies, research and services. This ensures that the work addresses peoples’ needs as they see and experience them.
Aim
Through our recent experiences in developing policies and guidelines that address the needs of people affected by cancer, involving people with lived experience and community in our policy development process has resulted in several key learnings.
Methods
We have utilised a variety of methods to include community members and people with a lived experience in our policy development processes across the spectrum of cancer control. This includes community member peer-review processes, one-on-one consultations, inclusion in expert working groups, and development of Community Reference Groups. Operationally, we have tailored these approaches and increased flexibility for engagement by providing multiple feedback avenues to create safe spaces for community voices. Other successes included having a robust remuneration protocol, clear and frequent communication, and a transparent engagement process.
Conclusion
By co-presenting, we will provide a unique insight into the policy making process; the perspective of the person with lived experience, and how the process worked and didn’t work, and the perspective of the policy maker, and how involving lived experience and community ultimately strengthened the work. We will highlight how researchers, policymakers and program managers can involve community in the design and development of policies, research and services. Ensuring that engagement with community is built on mutual trust, remains genuine, modern and agile, prioritising participation that adds value to the community and the work.