In this post, we’re thrilled to feature Christina Derksen’s work, supported by last year’s Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) Small Grant. Through this project, Christina connected with women from diverse communities who had recently given birth to explore ways to make maternity experiences fairer and more inclusive. A key focus of her project was on improving communication, especially for women from minority backgrounds who often face communication barriers and inequities in maternity care.
The CPE grant enabled me to involve women from different communities who had recently given birth in my research. They engaged in planning a project to make birth fairer and more equal. A special focus of the project is equal communication. I used the CPE grant to understand community experiences and needs, develop my research methods, and think about how my research could positively impact people’s lives.
I planned meetings with six women who had experienced inequal treatment and communication when giving birth. In the first round of meetings, the women shared their experiences. I was shocked to learn how horrible some of their experiences were, and how common negative birth experiences are across women from minority backgrounds. I was deeply impressed how open the women were. They were so passionate about working towards positive changes that it strengthened my resolve to work in this field. In the groups, we discussed what would be helpful to know more around the issue of inequal communication in maternity care.
We discussed how research could contribute to tackle these problems. The women suggested looking into community initiatives such as coffee mornings and support counselling. Many of these support offers are usually not evaluated, and therefore would not come up in the research literature. They gave clear recommendations on who to approach and named community organisations and champions. They also emphasised how important it would be to give the women in the communities in East London a voice.
After the first meetings, I read up on key problems that the women identified. My research gained a new focus while looking at more groups, such as workers in the NHS. I changed the methods to make sure I would capture the stories of women with lived experiences of inequalities in maternity care. In a second round of meetings, I presented my ideas. We discussed in more detail who could benefit from being included in the research, and how we could reach them.
Through this project, I made practical experiences about organising the engagement work and respecting different needs to create an open, safe atmosphere. I learned from this project again how valuable it is to listen to people from different communities. I understood how powerful their lived experiences are. This helped me to see people from the communities as equal part of the research, rather than people that we are doing research for, even with the best intentions. I learned a lot about the current situation of giving birth in the UK as a black woman or a woman from another minority group. I learned about how communication, education, language barriers and deprivation can cause women to feel powerless. In the future, I will make sure to engage stakeholders in all stages of my research.
Christina Derksen (she/her)
Email: christina.derksen@qmul.ac.uk