Photovoice Blog Series
Blog #2: Community Partnerships & Hard-to-Reach Populations
Ogai brings with her valuable experience in patient and public engagement (PPE) with immigrant and refugee communities, through her Masters thesis, which involved understanding perceptions of mental health and unique barriers to accessing mental health services. In this series, Ogai guides the reader through the photovoice participatory research method, and provides step-by-step examples of ways to engage participants throughout the research process.
Missed the first blog in the series? Read it here.
Prior to developing a research question or writing a research proposal aimed at improving the health and well-being of a community, it is important to connect with end-users — the best way to find out the needs and relevance of research is to engage and partner with community members. This can be particularly challenging for socially disadvantaged or “hard-to-reach” populations, including immigrants and refugees. Here I share my experiences and some strategies I found useful for connecting with the community, developing the research objectives, and recruiting participants for a photovoice project aimed at improving mental health services for Manitoba newcomers.
My Experience
As part of my Masters thesis, I sought to develop an arts-based qualitative research project. Prior to preparing my research proposal and in order to inform my research, I volunteered at a local community program called Artbeat Studio, whose mandate is to promotes empowerment and artistic expression for people using mental health services. Volunteering at Artbeat Studio helped me to gain a better understanding of the agency and the programs they offer. I engaged in conversations with Artbeat Studio staff around the needs of their agency, as well as their perspectives on the needs of the communities they serve. I learned that Artbeat Studio has low numbers of immigrants and refugees who access their services and resources. As part of their outreach efforts, Artbeat Studio wanted to engage immigrant and refugee individuals through community development and research to ensure they have access to the arts-based programs. From my own experience working in the social services field, I too have observed under-utilization of services by immigrants and refugees. As a result of these preliminary discussions, I decided to partner with Artbeat Studio in conducting a photovoice project to gain a deeper understanding of what the barriers are in accessing mental health services from the perspectives of immigrants and refugees.
Community Partnership
By volunteering before developing my research question, I was able to develop a proposal that was relevant to the needs and experiences of Artbeat Studio and the communities they serve (and hoped to serve better). In addition to informing the research process in its conceptual stages, the partnership with Artbeat Studio was essential to the success of the photovoice project for a number of reasons, including:
- Artbeat Studio’s wide social network and established relationship with the community provided the critical link — it was through volunteering with Artbeat Studio that I was able to be slowly introduced into the community, build rapport, and create trusting relationships.
- Artbeat Studio provided a safe space in the community for meetings to take place.
- Artbeat Studio offered support in the recruitment process of the research project and raised awareness about the project in the community.
- Artbeat Studio provided support, expertise and techniques for displaying participants’ stories and photographs in the launch and exhibition.
Tips for Recruitment
When recruiting individuals to participate in research it’s important to look at the topic area — is there a stigma attached to the topic? For example, my research was focused on immigrants and refugees and their barriers to accessing mental health services. The phrases “mental health” and “mental illness” can be very stigmatizing, especially for certain immigrant and refugee groups. As a result many people do not want to participate in research that uses these terms, for the fear of being ostracized by their community. When developing recruitment posters, I was mindful to not use these phrases.
It is also important to consider that recruitment can be a long process, which may require multiple methods, and to allow enough time to reach desired recruitment numbers. For example, in the project with Artbeat Studio, it took over two months to recruit six participants. In particular, communities such as immigrant and refugee groups can be hard to connect with, even with partnership from community organizations such as Artbeat Studio. There are a number of recruitment strategies that can be used to engage with these hard-to-reach communities, such as:
- Building trusting relationships in the community through community agencies.
- Distributing posters to all community agencies and partners, social media, and social networks.
- Emailing agencies who provide services to individuals who you want to engage and asked them to forward letters (highlighting your research and their role) to potential participants.
- Meeting with agencies face-face.
- Hosting community presentations — this is a particularly good way to meet potential participants, as it provides an opportunity for them to ask questions and build rapport.
- Using the snowball technique [1].
- Recruiting through advertisements and spots on radio stations or in newspapers.
What are some innovative ways you have used to recruit hard to reach populations? Let us know in the comments or Tweet at us @KnowledgeNudge
In the next instalment of the photovoice series, we’ll further explore engagement of participants in each step of the research process. Find links to the other 2 blogs in the series below:
Photovoice Blog #1: The Photovoice Method
Photovoice Blog #3: The Research Process
References
- Goodman, LA. Snowball Sampling. Ann Math Statist, 1961;32(1): 148–70.
About the Author
Ogai Sherzoi is a knowledge broker in patient and public engagement at the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation (CHI).
