Working together: UMHAN's new research collaboration guidance
Rachel Spacey, UMHAN's Policy & Engagement Officer writes about how we work in collaboration to support members and students
UMHAN is a membership charity made up of mental health professionals in education supporting students with mental health conditions. Part of our role is to articulate the practical and strategic benefits of the specialist roles we represent and share this with other key organisations and players across the sector. We liaise with relevant individuals and organisations and contribute to initiatives, working groups, conferences, and training.
We are often asked to sit on the working groups of research projects, or we work in partnership with academics researching student mental health. For example, we were a partner in the Office for Students funded Positive Digital Practices project led by the Open University and we are currently working with academics from the University of Sheffield who lead the SHARE project. We have worked with Universities UK, Student Minds, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists amongst many others. We also share details of relevant research outputs with our members through our Community Forum to help support them with their continuing professional development and sometimes we ask them to consider participating in research.
Working collaboratively is what we do at UMHAN whether with our members, other membership organisations, academics, and practitioners. On that basis we felt that it was important to articulate how we do that work more formally; to set out what is important to us in the collaborative work that we do and to help us weigh up whether participation is in line with our values and aims as a charity.
Our research collaboration framework is underpinned by two key principles: an ethic of respect for the researched and support for research that applies the principles of co-production or co-creation with students and staff.
We now have an online form that we ask you to complete if any of the following apply to you:
- You would like UMHAN to collaborate as a partner in your research
- You would like UMHAN to promote a call for participants for your project
- You would like UMHAN to promote your research to members.
The form asks you a number of questions to enable us to assess whether your research aligns with our aims, vision, and its relevance to our membership.
There are also some useful resources relating to ethics and co-production which members and potential collaborators may find useful.
If you would like to work collaboratively with us in this way then please contact Dr. Rachel Spacey, UMHAN’s Policy and Engagement Officer.
With thanks to Hannah Borkin, UMHAN Trustee, for her suggestions for the development of this guidance.
Image by RF._.studio on Pexels.
