Introduction to this resource

Introduction

This resource offers advice and guidance to help you develop your own training and support packages suited to different situations and contexts. The information in the resource is drawn from the direct experience of members of the public, researchers, trainers and public involvement specialists (see About this resource for further information).

There are a number of different situations in which people will need training and support for public involvement in research. These range from large research organisations aiming to train a large number of researchers working across a network, where a formally run training course might be appropriate, through to individual researchers developing informal ‘on-the-job’ approaches to train and support one or two members of the public on a small, low-budget project.

Tailoring training and support for public involvement to each individual situation, if possible, is helpful and constructive.

Using this resource

Start by looking at What do we mean by ‘training’ and ‘support’? for an explanation of these terms and guiding principles for any training or support packages.

The resource provides an overview of training and support for both researchers and members of the public and information on how to carry out a needs assessment.

We provide more detailed advice and guidance about training and supporting members of the public focusing on five common ways people are getting involved:

Research panel member

Project advisory group member

Project steering group member

Public reviewer

Peer interviewer

In these sections, where relevant and where we are able to draw on people’s direct experience, we also consider the training and support that researchers might want to manage these different types of involvement.

In all sections, a wide range of case studies are included to illustrate how this guidance has been put into practice in different contexts. You can view these from the list of case studies at the bottom of the web pages or browse them all.

What this resource does not do

This resource does not offer ‘off-the-shelf’ training programmes or a directory of training courses. We explain why we have not taken that approach in the About this resource section.

Let us know what you think

We welcome your comments and feedback on this resource. Please also send us ideas for more case studies and links to other useful resources.

Send your comments, information and ideas to: training@invo.org.uk