Hello, my name is Kate. I recently started working for the Institute of Mental Health as the Public Involvement Lead. 

I completed my induction with my Trust and then I set about meeting colleagues and peers around the building and those further afield connected to our work. Happily starting to understand the infrastructure of the Institute, the projects underway within the Centres of Excellence, the who’s who of Involvement and reading the excellent work of my predecessors. Then, no sooner had I started to pick up some real work and understanding the lay of the land, along came change.  

Not just the usual NHS change; Workforce Change or Transformational Change, the language of change within the NHS we are so familiar with, but no, real tangible change across the whole world. Dramatic, large scale, professional and private change immediately across our countries and our communities.

Daily announcements, updates, internal emails, Whatsapp chats, social media feeds, all busy with news, updates, memes and links to more information. Everything all colliding in our information streams that many of us have often kept separate, compartmentalised and ordered.

Now, as things settle a little and we know we are here for the long haul the biggest change, providing we are fortunate enough to be well and continuing in this new normal, is how we humans interact with one another.  It was a change many of us were not completely ready for and especially not anticipating of its speed. However, thanks to professional IT departments and flexible working we have these virtual means quickly embedded into our newly collided home and work environments. For many in research this is a way of life and has been for a long time but what about the audiences, contributors, participants and others that don’t fit the category of those with a staff email? Those who don’t have a professional IT department to prop up their immediate needs?

Firstly, my immediate response as a public involvement specialist was one of the human need. Are my contributors and contacts safe, well and supported? Do they have any needs I can help or signpost them to? Are they wishing to remain in contact with me at this time or do they want to pull up the drawbridge on their current involvement and focus on home-schooling, vulnerable friends and relatives or their own needs?

Once I was able to answer this question and encourage my peers to do the same if they hadn’t, it left me pondering what does this mean for Public Involvement within our research? Particularly in this new job where I didn’t even know what many of my contributors, peers and colleagues looked like yet let alone having the relationships and trust to work in isolation without the warm, open conversations of face to face interactions that I have relied on so heavily in my work to date. 

So, I will be continuing to explore this and sharing what we do next.  If you want to hear more, join me on the journey. I also hope this regular update will act as an invitation for you to engage with me, directly or with others within the IMH and our wider community. This is a fantastic opportunity to better engage and involve public contributions to our work, our thinking, our discoveries and our direction - come with us.

Stay safe and take care

Kate