Smooth Brain Society

#58. SAFE: Supporting BlAck Families AffEcted by psychosis - Angela Kibia

Smooth Brain Society Season 2 Episode 58

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 41:14

Angela Kibia, Researcher at King's College London, talks about the work being carried out by the SAFE project aimed towards developing education and group support for Black families and carers supporting a relative with psychosis. Highlighting the importance of all those who care for someone with a mental health condition and what we can do to better support them.

Experiences from participants from the SAFE project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4DcFShrLLE

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/exploring-the-experiences-of-carers-from-black-communities-1


Support the show

Support us and reach out!
https://smoothbrainsociety.com
https://www.patreon.com/SmoothBrainSociety

Instagram: @thesmoothbrainsociety
TikTok: @thesmoothbrainsociety
Twitter/X:  @SmoothBrainSoc
Facebook: @thesmoothbrainsociety
Merch and all other links: Linktree
email: thesmoothbrainsociety@gmail.com


(00:00:05):
Welcome everybody to the Smooth Brain Society.

(00:00:08):
Today we'll be talking to Angela Kibia.

(00:00:12):
She is a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry,

(00:00:15):
Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London.

(00:00:19):
She's joining us to speak on her project SAFE,

(00:00:22):
which is supporting black families affected by psychosis.

(00:00:27):
She will be giving us insights into the project itself and also the importance of

(00:00:31):
working with communities and advisory groups.

(00:00:34):
So welcome onto the podcast, Angela.

(00:00:37):
Thank you for having me.

(00:00:41):
So I guess the first question is I gave the more sort of job description introduction for you.

(00:00:49):
But if you had to introduce yourself to us, to the audience, how would you introduce yourself?

(00:00:56):
So I'm a research assistant based at the Institute of Psychiatry,

(00:01:00):
Psychology and Neuroscience,

(00:01:01):
like you've mentioned.

(00:01:03):
And I've got an education background of psychology for my undergraduate and

(00:01:08):
bachelor of science,

(00:01:10):
and also having done a master's in research in cognitive neuroscience at the

(00:01:16):
University College London.

(00:01:19):
And I guess a little bit about me personally is that I love to read.

(00:01:22):
I'm such a bookworm, whether it be research articles or fiction.

(00:01:28):
So yeah, that's just a little bit about me.

(00:01:30):
And my research interests, I guess, focus on

(00:01:33):
reducing health inequalities,

(00:01:35):
and especially that that pertains to racially minoritized communities as well.

(00:01:40):
All right, Wu, let's talk about what you're here for.

(00:01:45):
So the second part of your intro was talking about sort of reducing inequalities in

(00:01:52):
communities and your interests in health there.

(00:01:55):
So let's talk about the SAFE project,

(00:01:57):
if you could expand more on it,

(00:01:59):
on what it is,

(00:02:00):
and we can go from there.

(00:02:03):
Yes, so the SAFE project, which is Supporting Black Families Affected by Psychosis.

(00:02:10):
And this is a project that was funded by the Moresley Charity,

(00:02:14):
in which I was a research assistant for the project,

(00:02:18):
with the principal investigator being Dr.

(00:02:21):
Juliana Ormeri,

(00:02:23):
Reader in Clinical Psychology at King's College London,

(00:02:27):
and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at South London and Moresley NHS Trust.

(00:02:33):
And just some background against the project.

(00:02:36):
So this project focused on caregivers,

(00:02:40):
informal carers,

(00:02:42):
who are specifically from Black racially minoritized backgrounds.

(00:02:47):
And the rationale behind this is in the UK,

(00:02:52):
there are approximately 10.6 million people who are in informal caregiving roles.

(00:03:00):
And I use the word all the time informal carers,

(00:03:04):
but simply put,

(00:03:05):
these are caregivers who are unpaid and they are usually family members,

(00:03:12):
whether it be a brother,

(00:03:13):
a mother,

(00:03:14):
a sister,

(00:03:15):
an uncle,

(00:03:16):
or even a close friend or close other.

(00:03:21):
And around...

(00:03:23):
18% of the UK population are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

(00:03:28):
And so when we look at those who are informal carers in unpaid caregiving roles and

(00:03:35):
those who are from Black ethnic minority backgrounds,

(00:03:39):
research has shown that they in fact have poorer caregiving experiences.

(00:03:45):
And this is manifested through discrimination and racism that is faced.

(00:03:51):
as well as facing more financial challenges.

(00:03:55):
And so service providers may overlook some of these racial issues when it pertains

(00:04:01):
to carer interventions.

(00:04:04):
Specifically within the project,

(00:04:06):
we are focusing on informal carers from Black ethnic minority backgrounds,

(00:04:11):
but carers who are supporting an individual with psychosis.

(00:04:17):
And when we look at psychosis,

(00:04:19):
Research shows that psychotic disorders disproportionately affect Black Caribbean

(00:04:26):
and Black African communities.

(00:04:29):
And it shows that diagnosis is around six to nine times higher than white British groups.

(00:04:37):
And so this is a very important racial community,

(00:04:41):
those from Black ethnic minority backgrounds to focus on.

(00:04:46):
because evidence also attests that there are negative pathways to care with service

(00:04:52):
users from Black ethnic minority backgrounds,

(00:04:56):
which is shown through access through criminal justice routes or compulsory detention.

(00:05:02):
And even while in care,

(00:05:04):
there are negative care experiences seen again through compulsory detention and

(00:05:10):
restrictive practices.

(00:05:12):
And moving from that, there is even poorer outcomes.

(00:05:16):
So that's a bit of background and rationale as to why this project specifically

(00:05:20):
focuses on informal carers from Black ethnic minority backgrounds who are

(00:05:26):
supporting an individual with psychosis.

(00:05:31):
Well, that was a very comprehensive sort of rationale and background.

(00:05:37):
There's a few things which I'd like to unpick from it.

(00:05:40):
I think the first is maybe talking about psychosis itself.

(00:05:44):
Maybe we can talk a little bit about that and then we can go into the carer side of

(00:05:49):
it and support side of it.

(00:05:50):
So first,

(00:05:51):
if you could give our listeners and myself as well,

(00:05:56):
actually,

(00:05:56):
an idea of psychosis,

(00:05:59):
of the sort of,

(00:06:00):
yeah,

(00:06:01):
the phenotype of it,

(00:06:02):
what it looks like.

(00:06:04):
And you had also mentioned that

(00:06:06):
this could be the second part of the question which you'll get to again i feel but

(00:06:09):
um if uh you had mentioned that there's much higher rates in black caribbean and

(00:06:17):
black african communities of psychosis so maybe we can even unpick a little bit of

(00:06:22):
like potential reasons for that uh but yeah if you could give us a little

(00:06:26):
background

(00:06:27):
So I first want to preface by saying I'm not a clinician.

(00:06:30):
So as a brief overview,

(00:06:33):
psychosis is a severe mental health problem that can affect anyone with its first

(00:06:40):
presentation usually occurring during young adulthood.

(00:06:44):
And as I've mentioned,

(00:06:45):
does disproportionately impact with higher diagnostic rates people from black

(00:06:52):
racially minoritized backgrounds in the UK.

(00:06:56):
Okay.

(00:06:58):
So I'm guessing there's,

(00:07:01):
I guess we've known this sort of that,

(00:07:03):
that link of more deprived conditions or having higher rates of traumatic

(00:07:09):
experiences links to higher rates of sort of mental health conditions.

(00:07:13):
Yeah.

(00:07:15):
So then I'm guessing just these higher rates and because you had said because this

(00:07:23):
this site,

(00:07:23):
this project focuses on support on caregivers and supporters of people with psychosis.

(00:07:30):
I'm assuming then a lot of these people would also sort of be facing similar

(00:07:37):
stressors to the people they're taking care of,

(00:07:38):
right?

(00:07:38):
Because as you said,

(00:07:39):
their family members,

(00:07:41):
their friends or their...

(00:07:44):
How would...

(00:07:46):
Does this add another layer which needs to be focused on in terms of caregiving?

(00:07:51):
Because they're probably under the same pressures of the people they're caring for.

(00:07:56):
Yeah, definitely.

(00:07:57):
Yeah.

(00:07:58):
And also research shows that it's not uncommon for caregivers across the board for

(00:08:04):
any condition to also have quite common mental health problems such as depression

(00:08:10):
and anxiety because of the caregiving experiences that they have in supporting an individual.

(00:08:18):
Of course, that also comes with some stresses and so can also

(00:08:23):
within themselves have some slight mental health problems as well.

(00:08:28):
And especially as we focus on the project at Hand Safe,

(00:08:34):
as we're looking specifically at caregivers from Black ethnic minority backgrounds,

(00:08:40):
as I previously mentioned,

(00:08:42):
in comparison to other racial groups,

(00:08:44):
it's shown that they in fact have poorer caregiving experiences because of some of

(00:08:50):
the issues that I was talking about earlier.

(00:08:53):
racism and discrimination.

(00:08:54):
And so that does add another layer onto their caregiving experiences and why it was

(00:09:00):
important for Juliana,

(00:09:02):
the principal investigator,

(00:09:05):
Dr.

(00:09:05):
Juliana Romero,

(00:09:07):
to focus on caregiving experiences specifically from those from Black ethnic

(00:09:16):
minority backgrounds.

(00:09:19):
No, that makes complete sense.

(00:09:22):
So let's talk about the project itself then.

(00:09:24):
So you gave a little bit of an overview.

(00:09:27):
We've got into sort of the rationale behind it.

(00:09:30):
Now, so what is the project doing?

(00:09:33):
So how does this actually manifest?

(00:09:35):
Yeah,

(00:09:36):
so the aim of the project and what we actually did within the project was holding

(00:09:43):
consultations with key stakeholders.

(00:09:47):
on the lived experiences and the support needs of Black carers.

(00:09:53):
And so our key question that we had was,

(00:09:57):
what are the lived experiences and support needs of informal carers from Black

(00:10:03):
racially minoritized backgrounds who are supporting an individual with psychosis

(00:10:10):
and with the vantage point of different stakeholders?

(00:10:15):
And so, as I was mentioning consultations with key stakeholders, what does this mean?

(00:10:21):
Essentially,

(00:10:22):
we talked with different people,

(00:10:25):
key stakeholders,

(00:10:27):
which included,

(00:10:28):
importantly,

(00:10:30):
informal carers themselves around their lived experiences and their support needs.

(00:10:37):
We also talked to other key stakeholders and the importance of why we talked to them.

(00:10:43):
We also talked to service users and people with lived experience of psychosis.

(00:10:49):
We also talked to the police and this was quite important because they hold a very

(00:10:57):
important role in the lived experiences of caregivers and their lives as they're

(00:11:04):
often called into through different scenarios.

(00:11:07):
And so it was very important for us to talk to the police.

(00:11:13):
And we also had consultations with staff groups,

(00:11:16):
their understanding of lived experience and what support needs they believe that

(00:11:21):
Black carers needed,

(00:11:23):
especially within mental health staff groups.

(00:11:27):
Faith group leaders as well.

(00:11:29):
This was extremely important because,

(00:11:31):
as we know,

(00:11:32):
for some people,

(00:11:34):
not all,

(00:11:34):
but for some people within Black ethnic communities,

(00:11:38):
there is

(00:11:40):
a reliance and aid that they go to faith group leaders for.

(00:11:45):
And so that was important for us to include them in these consultations.

(00:11:51):
And then lastly, just general members from Black ethnic communities.

(00:11:56):
And so with these, these were the kind of consultations that we did have.

(00:12:03):
And yeah, I can talk a little bit about the method as well.

(00:12:06):
Of course, go ahead.

(00:12:08):
I'm just listening.

(00:12:10):
Yes,

(00:12:11):
so before we go into a bit about the method,

(00:12:15):
as I mentioned,

(00:12:16):
the aim was to have consultations with key stakeholders on the lived experiences

(00:12:23):
and support needs of informal carers from Black ethnic backgrounds.

(00:12:28):
And this kind of leads on to a longer term goal.

(00:12:33):
And in understanding what the lived experiences are and what the support needs are,

(00:12:40):
The longer term goal is actually to develop a racially tailored psycho educational

(00:12:48):
support group intervention for black racially minoritized informal carers who were

(00:12:54):
supporting an individual with lived experience of psychosis and so.

(00:13:01):
The themes and the answers that we got from these consultations will help to feed into that.

(00:13:08):
But that's quite, that's a longer term goal.

(00:13:10):
But to focus on this project itself, methods was qualitative interviews.

(00:13:18):
And so with this,

(00:13:20):
we had a topic guide and we interviewed one-to-one qualitative interviews with

(00:13:28):
informal carers.

(00:13:30):
as well as having focus groups with the stakeholders that I mentioned previously,

(00:13:35):
including the police and mental health staff groups and faith group leaders as well.

(00:13:41):
Okay.

(00:13:42):
So I'll just stop you there.

(00:13:44):
So for people who are unfamiliar,

(00:13:47):
qualitative interviews or qualitative methods are essentially sort of taking full

(00:13:53):
long form interviews,

(00:13:55):
having discussions with,

(00:13:57):
I guess,

(00:13:57):
stakeholders or whoever you're interviewing.

(00:14:00):
um and sort of getting oh correct me if i'm wrong but you're sort of getting you're

(00:14:06):
asking sort of key questions to get to sort of the ideas which they have and sort

(00:14:11):
of distilling it and you're is there quite a bit of back and forth going on to make

(00:14:14):
sure you've gotten the correct ideas across yes exactly that yeah so we have a

(00:14:20):
topic guide and we ask the um participants and the key stakeholders questions

(00:14:27):
But it's semi-structured.

(00:14:28):
So we also ask follow-up questions just to really understand their lived experiences.

(00:14:34):
And because it's from themselves, it's their self-reported experiences.

(00:14:41):
That's where we derive the data from, but it's definitely led from them.

(00:14:45):
Yeah, that's awesome.

(00:14:47):
And then what they're saying and what information you get from them is you're sort

(00:14:52):
of developing with them sort of

(00:14:55):
like you said,

(00:14:56):
the long-term goal was developing an intervention,

(00:14:58):
is what you said,

(00:14:59):
or sort of,

(00:15:00):
yeah.

(00:15:00):
Yeah,

(00:15:01):
so as part of the topic guide,

(00:15:03):
we also asked questions around what their ideas would be in regards to developing a

(00:15:10):
new racially tailored psychoeducational support group intervention for informal

(00:15:18):
carers who are supporting an individual with psychosis from Black ethnic minority groups.

(00:15:24):
awesome so uh i i should ask then why why are we why what sorry i'll start that

(00:15:33):
again i should i should ask then um for why a support group why not individual sort

(00:15:42):
of

(00:15:43):
intervention or individual support for people, for caregivers, for informal caregivers.

(00:15:50):
What's the difference?

(00:15:51):
Is this something that they came up with in early consultations or is it something

(00:15:56):
which you guys are sort of driving forward?

(00:15:59):
Yeah.

(00:16:00):
Well, I do have to say this, the idea of developing this support group is definitely

(00:16:08):
from Dr. Giuliano Mwumere, the principal investigator of the project.

(00:16:13):
And so I can't speak at length to this,

(00:16:16):
but definitely part of the questions that we asked was around the ideas of how this

(00:16:24):
should be developed so that it is informed by informal carers themselves.

(00:16:28):
So it's definitely something that's quite iterative in the stage.

(00:16:35):
But yeah,

(00:16:36):
as a group,

(00:16:36):
it would be helpful to be in contact and also hear from other caregivers as well.

(00:16:43):
But definitely Dr. Juliana would have more to say about that.

(00:16:47):
Yeah, we'll get her on.

(00:16:49):
Yeah, definitely.

(00:16:50):
We'll bring her on.

(00:16:53):
Okay, so the methods, qualitative interviews and sort of, you said workshops as well?

(00:17:00):
Oh no, focus groups.

(00:17:01):
Focus groups.

(00:17:02):
Yeah.

(00:17:02):
So the one-on-one interviews and then group interviews essentially.

(00:17:06):
This is just a general question.

(00:17:10):
Do you sort of get different responses between the two when people are talking in

(00:17:14):
focus groups versus individually or has it been pretty similar?

(00:17:19):
Well,

(00:17:21):
the reason why we did one-to-one qualitative interviews with informal carers is

(00:17:27):
because it's their own lived experiences.

(00:17:30):
And so a lot of what they're saying is going to be the experiences from their past,

(00:17:35):
whether positive or negative.

(00:17:36):
And so with this idea of it being so personable, it was...

(00:17:44):
yeah,

(00:17:44):
it was better to do this one-on-one and really delve into their experiences and

(00:17:49):
also their support needs around,

(00:17:51):
you know,

(00:17:52):
access to support services,

(00:17:55):
how in fact their racial identity of being from Black ethnic minority background influences,

(00:18:04):
if at all,

(00:18:05):
their experiences of being an informal carer.

(00:18:10):
Whereas with focus groups,

(00:18:12):
there is that lovely notion where ideas can develop as people talk.

(00:18:18):
As an example,

(00:18:20):
when having focus groups with faith group leaders,

(00:18:27):
with one participant saying something,

(00:18:30):
another participant can then build on that idea.

(00:18:33):
And so the conversation becomes more rich in that way,

(00:18:37):
which was quite important,

(00:18:38):
especially when asking these stakeholders

(00:18:41):
what their experiences have been in supporting informal carers,

(00:18:46):
and indeed what the support needs for them would be in their experiences,

(00:18:52):
especially from those from Black ethnic minority backgrounds.

(00:18:57):
I just love this project because you're sort of talking about care for carers and

(00:19:04):
considering majority of the research,

(00:19:05):
which I've even,

(00:19:06):
I've had on my show is about,

(00:19:09):
is about sort of the patients or the people affected by,

(00:19:14):
by something directly.

(00:19:15):
So thinking of,

(00:19:16):
you know,

(00:19:16):
the wider sort of,

(00:19:19):
sort of the wider groups,

(00:19:20):
which are also impacted by someone having

(00:19:23):
a health issue and the support for them I think is very important.

(00:19:29):
How far along are you guys with the project?

(00:19:32):
Yes, so the project has come to an end.

(00:19:36):
In terms of results, we're currently in the process of writing up the results.

(00:19:42):
But one thing I did want to mention as well was in coming up with the topic guide,

(00:19:49):
which was the list of questions to ask our participants,

(00:19:54):
and importantly throughout the whole process,

(00:19:58):
we co-produced this project with an advisory group.

(00:20:04):
An advisory group,

(00:20:06):
this advisory group that we had were individuals who were from Black

(00:20:15):
racially-manoitised backgrounds,

(00:20:18):
some with their own lived care-giving experiences.

(00:20:23):
And importantly,

(00:20:24):
we included the advisory group throughout the whole process to support and advise

(00:20:31):
our research project.

(00:20:33):
And they advised and consulted on a whole list of different things regarding the

(00:20:39):
research project,

(00:20:41):
including the project name,

(00:20:43):
the interview topic guide of relevant questions to arts participants,

(00:20:49):
as well as also reflections on our preliminary data findings,

(00:20:55):
and importantly,

(00:20:56):
different ways to disseminate the research findings in a kind of meaningful way.

(00:21:02):
And this advisory group was also in collaboration with the community organisation

(00:21:10):
CROIDEM BME Health Forum.

(00:21:13):
And it was important for us to include an advisory group to help to support and to

(00:21:19):
help to consult with the actual research process to ensure that it was grounded and

(00:21:26):
relevant to the very community that the project hopes to serve.

(00:21:32):
And so it helped to ensure that the research itself was shaped by those who would

(00:21:40):
be directly affected and by those from Black racially minoritized backgrounds.

(00:21:47):
And it was incredibly helpful.

(00:21:49):
And we met with them throughout the course of the project.

(00:21:53):
We met through online meetings, usually in the evening.

(00:21:58):
in which it was a great chance for us to,

(00:22:01):
one,

(00:22:02):
for us as researchers to update on where the project was,

(00:22:07):
whether this be an update on us getting the ethics,

(00:22:10):
which was great news to our participant recruitment,

(00:22:14):
how that was going.

(00:22:16):
And as I mentioned earlier,

(00:22:18):
also reflections on what their understanding was of the preliminary findings.

(00:22:26):
And this was important to us,

(00:22:27):
definitely,

(00:22:28):
and it helped a lot to kind of have cultural relevance to ensure that the study was

(00:22:35):
meaningful and appropriate.

(00:22:37):
It also helped us to identify effective ways to reach and engage with participants

(00:22:43):
and also provide context to the preliminary findings from a lived experience perspective,

(00:22:51):
ensuring that the research was aligned

(00:22:53):
with the needs and priorities of those from Black ethnically minoritized communities.

(00:23:01):
And so working with the advisory group was incredibly useful to our project and

(00:23:09):
like to thank all the advisory group members that were part of the SAFE project.

(00:23:13):
We definitely could have done it without them.

(00:23:15):
And it was a joy to work with those because they're from the community and,

(00:23:22):
sharing their opinions on the project help us to steer it in a relevant way as well.

(00:23:30):
I also imagine...

(00:23:33):
People who were involved in your advisory groups are probably some of the most

(00:23:38):
dedicated people in terms of you taking time out of your life to help with research

(00:23:45):
and sort of the effort which goes into it.

(00:23:50):
Must be, yeah.

(00:23:53):
Yeah, it was incredible.

(00:23:55):
It was lovely to work with those.

(00:23:57):
from the advisory group and also a special thanks to Andrew Brown,

(00:24:03):
who is the chair of the Croydon BME Health Forum and working with him as well was

(00:24:10):
such a pleasure in building the advisory group and also continuing it along

(00:24:15):
throughout the process of the research project.

(00:24:19):
So considering you said the research project is,

(00:24:22):
well,

(00:24:22):
at its end in terms of your writing up results,

(00:24:25):
what happens in the advisory group?

(00:24:27):
What are the next steps for your collaborations with them and with the people who

(00:24:34):
helped out throughout the project?

(00:24:37):
Well, we had the same idea.

(00:24:40):
And so we wanted to also...

(00:24:44):
work with the advisory group to kind of capture what their experiences have been

(00:24:49):
like in being involved in an advisory group.

(00:24:55):
And so with this,

(00:24:57):
we asked members from the SAFE advisory group about their involvement in research.

(00:25:04):
And this was important because we know that research plays an important role in

(00:25:10):
improving healthcare.

(00:25:13):
But we also know that there is an underrepresentation of people from Black racially

(00:25:19):
minoritized backgrounds who are involved in research.

(00:25:25):
And this is due to various reasons,

(00:25:28):
but one of the main ones is just not having the information about being involved in research,

(00:25:37):
what it may mean and how to in fact do it.

(00:25:41):
And so we invited some members from our advisory group to create a podcast,

(00:25:49):
a little podcast episode in which they could retell their experiences of being

(00:25:56):
involved in research.

(00:25:58):
And this was incredibly important because oftentimes we think that research

(00:26:06):
involvement is limited to research.

(00:26:09):
being a participant in a study.

(00:26:12):
And while this is incredibly valuable,

(00:26:15):
there are other ways in which people can be involved in research,

(00:26:19):
which I don't think many people actually know about.

(00:26:24):
And so one of the valuable ways is in fact being an advisory group member.

(00:26:30):
And so our members spoke about their experiences being involved in research,

(00:26:37):
but importantly,

(00:26:39):
as someone from a black racially minoritized background,

(00:26:44):
because as I mentioned earlier,

(00:26:47):
there is an under-representation of those from black racially minoritized

(00:26:51):
backgrounds in research.

(00:26:54):
And so this short podcast episode was created with the aim to kind of demystify

(00:27:03):
what research is,

(00:27:05):
some of the myths around it,

(00:27:07):
and importantly,

(00:27:08):
to kind of encourage and to understand what it may mean to be part in research itself.

(00:27:19):
And so the members kind of spoke about what motivated them to get involved in research,

(00:27:26):
which included providing a missing perspective and kind of encouraging and bringing

(00:27:36):
forward the voices and perspectives of individuals from Black ethnic communities.

(00:27:44):
It was great to hear that they had a great experience being involved in an advisory group,

(00:27:50):
which is always wonderful to hear.

(00:27:52):
That's kind of the one thing you do want to hear, that they had a great experience.

(00:27:58):
And it also kind of increased their knowledge about research and the impact that

(00:28:04):
research can have on communities.

(00:28:07):
And being able to have that perspective from our members

(00:28:12):
who are from Black racially minoritized backgrounds,

(00:28:16):
we aimed that it can also encourage other people from racially minoritized

(00:28:23):
backgrounds to be involved in research because we know that there is an underrepresentation.

(00:28:31):
One of the reasons I said earlier is because of not knowing about research,

(00:28:35):
but there are also other reasons,

(00:28:38):
including mistrust around research,

(00:28:42):
And this kind of stems from a history of poor research practice.

(00:28:49):
And so wanting to build on these conversations to get people involved in research,

(00:28:55):
because we know that research has a direct link to health interventions and health outcomes.

(00:29:04):
So, yeah, just getting to show people through this podcast episode

(00:29:09):
that research is not just in fact about vaccinations or just being a part of drug

(00:29:15):
trials and that there are different ways to get involved so that we could increase

(00:29:20):
the awareness about research especially for those who would want to get involved

(00:29:26):
but maybe are unsure how so

(00:29:30):
That was one of the kind of ways that we did work with our advisory group members

(00:29:34):
towards the end of the project to kind of close it up and a chance for them to

(00:29:40):
speak on their own experiences aside from their advice on the project,

(00:29:45):
just a bit more personable about how they found the advisory group.

(00:29:50):
So yeah,

(00:29:51):
that was an amazing experience in talking to them and hearing their experiences,

(00:29:57):
especially.

(00:29:58):
as someone from a Black ethnic background.

(00:30:03):
Yeah.

(00:30:06):
I will just tell everyone that I've already listened to that episode.

(00:30:09):
And it's really good.

(00:30:11):
It's quite eye-opening.

(00:30:12):
It's very heartwarming as well.

(00:30:14):
So I will put the link to that episode in the show notes, the descriptions of this one.

(00:30:21):
So you guys, whoever's interested, can check it out as well.

(00:30:26):
But let's talk a little bit about the results of this one.

(00:30:30):
I know you said you're writing them up,

(00:30:31):
so maybe you can't give all the results or anything like that.

(00:30:33):
But some of the preliminary results,

(00:30:34):
it would be good to sort of talk about what came out of the project and sort of

(00:30:39):
gives an idea of what the next steps can be for people.

(00:30:42):
yeah um unfortunately i think you're not going to like my answer in that because we

(00:30:50):
are in the process of writing up the results and publishing this soon i can't give

(00:30:56):
away much about the results especially in preliminary findings you will

(00:31:01):
unfortunately have to wait until it's published but um overall i would just say

(00:31:07):
perhaps my experience in

(00:31:10):
hearing from informal carers as a research assistant.

(00:31:16):
And when I was conducting these interviews,

(00:31:21):
reflecting on what I heard,

(00:31:23):
I think it was just quite an honor and privilege to hear people in retelling their

(00:31:32):
challenges and their personal experiences in being a caregiver.

(00:31:39):
And it was especially eye-opening and informing for myself to kind of see firsthand

(00:31:46):
how being a caregiver really interacts with their background as being from Black

(00:31:54):
ethnic backgrounds and how this kind of changes how they navigate through different

(00:32:05):
health systems and just their personal

(00:32:07):
experiences um so yeah in in interviewing them and also with the different

(00:32:15):
stakeholders i learned so much about the police and faith people leaders and mental

(00:32:21):
health staff and just general members from um black community black ethnic

(00:32:27):
communities about their own experiences in

(00:32:33):
what um the lived experiences are from informal carers and how even though they're

(00:32:39):
quite different stakeholders they all can have their own different opinions um on

(00:32:46):
what support needs they actually do need so while that is a roundabout way of

(00:32:52):
answering your question unfortunately i can't say more but um

(00:32:57):
Just to say that it was definitely Heart Woman informed me a lot about,

(00:33:04):
in fact,

(00:33:05):
their lived experiences and definitely the unique caregiving challenges that they face.

(00:33:12):
Okay.

(00:33:15):
That's unfortunate that you can't give more of an answer,

(00:33:17):
but that was a very,

(00:33:18):
that was a very good roundabout answer.

(00:33:21):
I have a few questions though.

(00:33:22):
So you can't discuss the results with us,

(00:33:26):
but I assume you,

(00:33:28):
cause you said this was a co-developed project and it went back and forth.

(00:33:31):
I assume you have spoken to your participants about what you,

(00:33:34):
what the preliminary sort of findings were and how did,

(00:33:37):
how was that process and what sort of feedback have you received?

(00:33:42):
Yes, so it was definitely very important for us to feed back the preliminary results.

(00:33:50):
Because we know that oftentimes people engage in research,

(00:33:56):
but they may not always hear back from researchers what the data found.

(00:34:03):
And this was especially important because

(00:34:08):
Our group,

(00:34:09):
which was from racially minoritized backgrounds,

(00:34:13):
black racially minoritized backgrounds,

(00:34:17):
oftentimes there are narratives around,

(00:34:21):
you know,

(00:34:21):
not trusting research or researchers because,

(00:34:25):
you know,

(00:34:26):
once I give you my information,

(00:34:27):
once I give you my data,

(00:34:30):
I don't hear anything back and it feels like a kind of taking from me and I'm not

(00:34:35):
getting anything back.

(00:34:37):
Um,

(00:34:38):
and if you do get something back,

(00:34:40):
you,

(00:34:41):
you know,

(00:34:41):
it can't just be an academic paper because it's so technical and,

(00:34:46):
you know,

(00:34:46):
you can't expect everyone to kind of read it and understand it.

(00:34:51):
And this was important for us.

(00:34:53):
So, um, Julia, Dr. Juliana and I, we, um,

(00:34:58):
held more so a community event.

(00:35:02):
And this was a research feedback event whereby we invited the participants who took

(00:35:11):
part in the project and also other interested parties,

(00:35:18):
which included healthcare practitioners,

(00:35:21):
community organisations,

(00:35:24):
staff from the police and also service users as well.

(00:35:30):
And this event was to feedback the research findings and importantly,

(00:35:37):
not only just kind of feedback the project itself,

(00:35:41):
how we did it and the results,

(00:35:43):
but

(00:35:44):
kind of to reflect with them and discuss what their opinions or how their

(00:35:52):
experiences help to reflect and discuss on these findings.

(00:35:59):
And again,

(00:35:59):
this was important because it was a way to kind of have that bi-directional

(00:36:04):
conversation with participants and with other key stakeholders as a means of

(00:36:12):
understanding the results

(00:36:15):
And in having these discussions,

(00:36:16):
it wasn't,

(00:36:17):
you know,

(00:36:18):
just those who attended talking with myself or with Dr.

(00:36:23):
Juliana as researchers,

(00:36:26):
but it was amazing because they talked to each other,

(00:36:29):
which meant that on tables,

(00:36:32):
there was an informal carer talking about their lived experiences and how that

(00:36:37):
related to the research findings with the police officer and them sharing their

(00:36:43):
experiences

(00:36:45):
in being involved with service users and with family members and networks.

(00:36:50):
We had community organizations talking and those who are service users with lived

(00:36:56):
experiences of psychosis.

(00:36:59):
And so this event was revolving around reflections on their lived experiences and

(00:37:06):
reflection on the results from the project to have those conversations.

(00:37:15):
and these discussions were amazing because not only were they fruitful in having

(00:37:22):
them between the individuals but we also found a fun way of kind of visualizing

(00:37:30):
these discussions and so we had a

(00:37:35):
we had visual minutes, which was a kind of new concept to me while we were doing this event.

(00:37:42):
But it is essentially somebody who takes the minutes or the discussions of an event,

(00:37:48):
but illustrates it.

(00:37:50):
And it was perfect because it kind of visualised exactly what the event was about.

(00:37:57):
And it was about, you know, the importance

(00:38:00):
of those within a research team feeding back the results to those who took part and

(00:38:05):
to those who were interested so that it can build on that trust to show you know

(00:38:11):
this is what we've done with your data but also to increase the knowledge of those

(00:38:16):
who were interested and also kind of the discussions that were had as well um it

(00:38:23):
and it was a lovely event we also had um

(00:38:26):
one of um an informal carer who came and sang a song which was amazing and we also

(00:38:33):
had someone with lived experience have a little comedy act as well um so this was a

(00:38:39):
really good community event that was just based off of discussions um and yeah it

(00:38:46):
was definitely something for myself as well as a research assistant to kind of

(00:38:51):
bring that forward along within my career in kind of

(00:38:55):
cementing the importance of relaying back the findings of a research study to the

(00:39:03):
very communities that you wish to serve and that's that's a good one it sounds so

(00:39:08):
much fun i would much rather go to a community event than read a journal article

(00:39:13):
yeah definitely

(00:39:17):
That was really good.

(00:39:18):
Thank you so much for that,

(00:39:21):
for talking us through the SAFE project,

(00:39:24):
highlighting the importance of community research,

(00:39:28):
highlighting the importance of sort of thinking about all the other people involved

(00:39:33):
when

(00:39:35):
when someone is dealing with a mental health condition or with a health condition

(00:39:38):
in general,

(00:39:38):
all the caregivers and all the people who do the work on a voluntary basis and

(00:39:43):
thinking about their needs as well.

(00:39:45):
So thank you.

(00:39:46):
Yeah,

(00:39:47):
thank you as well for having me speaking about the SAFE project and definitely to

(00:39:52):
kind of bring to light

(00:39:53):
the experiences of informal carers and caregivers,

(00:39:59):
because oftentimes,

(00:40:01):
and it's not a competition,

(00:40:02):
oftentimes a lot of focus is given to service users,

(00:40:06):
which is amazing.

(00:40:07):
But we also really need to remember those who are supporting these individuals,

(00:40:13):
oftentimes unpaid,

(00:40:16):
coming from a familial or friend role and taking the time to kind of

(00:40:23):
have their perspectives heard so that their support needs can also be attended to as well.

(00:40:29):
So thank you for allowing me to talk a little bit more about informal carers who

(00:40:33):
are often not talked about and they are the missing voices in a lot of conversations.

(00:40:41):
And it was great to be here today.

(00:40:42):
So thank you so much.

(00:40:44):
Awesome.

(00:40:45):
Thank you again.

(00:40:46):
Thanks so much, everybody, for listening.

(00:40:50):
Do check out Angela and Dr. Juliana's work.

(00:40:54):
Check out the SAFE project.

(00:40:55):
Check out what they have coming up as well.

(00:40:59):
Yeah.

(00:40:59):
Thank you, everyone, for listening.

(00:41:00):
Thank you, everyone, for supporting our conversations.

(00:41:03):
And until next time, take care.

(00:41:05):
Bye.

(00:41:06):
Thank you.

(00:41:06):
Bye.