An Equitable Recovery from COVID-19: Insights from community research in Lambeth
For the majority of 2020, The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP) had the pleasure of working with Black Thrive and The McPin Foundation to conduct a research project exploring race, COVID-19 and employment in Lambeth. This research formed part of Black Thrive’s Employment Project, which aims to improve employment outcomes for Black Lambeth residents with long-term conditions. The Employment Project seeks to improve the knowledge and understanding of the health and employment issues this community faces, in order to test and pilot new innovative solutions. To conduct this research, we worked with an amazing team of 12 community researchers to speak to 37 people rooted in South London, who all self-identified as Black, to capture their experiences of and perspectives on these issues.
In this blog, we share the learnings from the research process and some of the challenges we were able to overcome as a team of community researchers. We also share some of the insights uncovered through the project as well as a snapshot of the recommendations that we developed for local government and funders in Lambeth.
Learnings from the research process
At every stage in the research process, we recognised learnings that we wanted to capture and share. We believe these learnings emphasise the need to implement a community research approach for any community-focussed work and also provide some food for thought for others already involved in community research space.
Through the research process, we identified four key learnings:
1. There is a need to actively support the wellbeing of the community researchers as much as the research participants. The beauty of community research is that the researchers come from the communities they are engaging. Whilst this is beneficial for the research as it leads to richer and deeper insight, there are fewer considerations about the impact this has on the researchers themselves. As we share in the report, “When conducting research in your own community and drawing on your own lived experience, having continuous conversations about racism and discrimination can be triggering, traumatic and draining.” In order to respond to this identified need, we set up a Community Researchers Wellbeing Fund, funded by Impact on Urban Health (formerly Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity), that gave the community researchers the resource to support their wellbeing in the way they thought was best.
2. There is a hesitancy from communities to engage in research due to factors such as medical scepticism and research weariness. Our ability to overcome these engagement barriers came from our researchers’ existing standing and trust held within the communities we were researching. Prior conversations were had with potential research participants in order to introduce the research project and address any initial concerns. Given the positionality of the community researchers, they were able to have these conversations over a period of time, without putting pressure of the potential research participants. As we ask in the report, if we faced these barriers as community researchers, how much greater would they be for researchers with no connection to the community?
3. Community research is about taking an assets-based approach to building a team. It goes without saying that interviewing, analysing data and reporting writing all require a different set of skills. While we encourage community researchers to take part in all aspects of the research process, we also recognise that individuals naturally have existing skillsets and preferred interests and work styles. By the end of the research process, we had progressed to working in a way that harnessed the existing skills of the researchers, and our focus was on creating and developing a team with the collective skillset required to conduct a research project.
4. Being committed to community leadership and ownership takes time and flexibility. At different stages throughout the research project, completing certain tasks would have been quicker if it had been delegated to one person. By taking this approach, however, we would have missed an opportunity for growth for the team. We were fortunate enough to be working with two organisations that prioritised the development of the community researchers as much as the outputs for the project. Their flexibility and understanding meant we were able to embed ownership at every stage in the research process from research design to final write-up.
A snapshot of our insights
The following overview has been taken from the executive summary of the report.
In the first section, The “New Normal”, we explore the different ways in which people have responded to this new way of living as a result of the pandemic. As expected, for the majority of people COVID-19 has been a source of anxiety. While our research showed that some Black people have adjusted by shifting towards self-care, there are still some who feel unprepared for the world and how it is changing. Finally, given the nature of the pandemic, an important finding from the research was heightened health awareness, both physical and mental health, within Black communities.
The second section, Who Can We Trust?, explores the reasons for some Black people’s growing distrust in the health and safety guidance throughout the pandemic and the rise of medical scepticism, particularly when the public sector is involved. We also look at the role of the media in the racialisation of COVID-19 and the impact this has had on Black people’s experiences of overt racism. Finally, we discuss the need to rethink effective methods for the dissemination of information, particularly for those with lived experiences of racial injustice and for non-English speaking communities.
In the third section, Back to Basics, we look at access to three necessities during lockdown – food, health support and technology. Through our research, we found that access to food was a challenge and for those that did receive support from local organisations, the food they received was not culturally appropriate. The same was true for health-related support where some experienced challenges accessing relevant healthcare which meant there was added pressures on (younger) family members. Finally, we found that for those people with good access to technology, had somewhat of a lifeline during lockdown, but people were already experiencing digital fatigue.
The fourth and final section, The Future of Work and Education, considers how employment and people’s preferences are changing as a result of the pandemic and what needs to be done in response. For Black people in particular, we found that working from home has been a welcome change as it has provided an escape from “toxic” work environments. Furthermore, some have seen this time as providing the opportunity they needed to explore self-employment and other income streams. Looking towards the future, we also explore the three factors we have identified as being influential in securing the employment of people from Black communities – upskilling, access to opportunities and greater representation in decision making.
We also share specific insights from Black people living with long-term conditions, such as, in addition to job-seeking support, there’s a need to provide more direct support in the workplace. We also explore the role the education system has in correcting the employment system, and how educating all young people on biases and systemic racism is the first step towards reducing the existence of these issues. .
A snapshot of our recommendations:
Using our insights as the foundation, we developed a set of recommendations for local government and funders on how they could work towards promoting an equitable recovery from COVID-19 in Lambeth. The recommendations shared below have been taken from the executive summary and highlight the direction we believe local organisations need to take. The full list of recommendations can be found in the final report.
Use the context of COVID-19 to support conversations about public health within Black communities
Prioritise the voices of traditionally unheard communities in broader discussions about environmental racism
Co-design community-led workshops to give residents the confidence to transition into the “new normal”, targeting specific groups such as older adults
Co-develop strategies for effectively engaging and interacting with communities, particularly those that speak English as a second language
Commission local independent research into COVID-19 that will be more credible within local communities
Co-design youth-led workshops on the social determinants of health to ensure communities are having broader conversations about public health
Provide more culturally appropriate food parcels distributed across the community regularly
Co-design wellbeing support strategies for young carers, recognising the significant impact of COVID-19 on young people
Set up a digital Buddy scheme, that includes strategies to support wellbeing as technology use increases, to teach local people digital skills
Re-design recruitment processes and job seeking support to focus more on individual’s values, skills and potential
Deliver in-work support that promotes wellbeing by putting people at the centre of its design
Develop course content to be delivered in schools to ensure that young people are best prepared for work and living independently
If you have any questions or reflections about the report, please get in touch – we’d love to hear from you! You can use the contact us page or email Keisha Simms. You can access the full report here.
