Micky Hingorani
Forum Replies Created
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It is important that community stakeholders are informed about the insufficiency of resources. The team would leverage on strength of community stakeholders in speaking to their community members about the research. They would also encourage their members to speak to other people about the research and in no time, the community has been saturated. This is a marketing strategy that is ‘No cost’ and just requires regular engagement with community stakeholders.
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We have made use of the existing local structures, we would request for permission to attend the meetings eg at Youth CAB meetings and kindly request the meeting organizers to add our issue on their agenda and take only a few minutes of their time. If our requests are granted we then engage the community stakeholders in our discussions and we get their input and views as well. Though the time granted can be so little sometimes , a lot of important issues can come up which can then be followed up on later with key individuals identified in those meetings since rapport/trust would have been built through the initial face to face contact in the meetings.
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In the planning stage, it is cogent to have a cordial and existing relationship with stakeholders at all levels. Thus, to ensure that they have a clear understanding about the research and for them to support, share values or acknowledge the overall goal of the engagement program.
We also have Focus Group Discussions (FGD) where community members and key opinion leaders are engaged more into the research process, in order to make sure that their inputs are incorporated into the decision making of the research processes. We keep them updated about any changes or developments throughout. Also, we allow the community leaders to act as a representative amongst the research team and stakeholders.
My team ensures community input and support for the overall goal by continually meeting with the community stakeholders, leaders, and key allies. During this meeting, the community gets an opportunity to share & voice-out their concerns, plight, and their suggestions. Invariably, my team will take a step farther to analyze and make sure that all inputs and suggestions are put into consideration for better planning and research. -
Our site has a well established CAB, which has regular scheduled meeting twice month.
On submission for the site to perform a trial- CAB members are informed by the site, about the type of study, possible participants- Ethical way to find participants, how will it benefit the community, the challenges the site might encounter in recruiting, how will the CAB support the site.
A good mapping by the Engagement team. -
When resources are insufficient to support formal formative research activities, we have facilitated participation of community stakeholders in initial outreach and informative gathering by using the previous sectors we used when we had our Influential Network Leaders(INLs) and Influential Network Agents(INAs) when we were doing Couple HIV Counselling and Testing.The religious leaders, as they preach to the congregation they would also talk about research activities. Civic leaders as they have meetings or gatherings they also include in their speeches research activities. Business men as they go about with their businesses they also talk about research activities and get feedback. We have also used health personnel both in health facilities during health talks and in the community as the go for sensitization on sanitation and hygiene they talk also on research activities. We have also used our own staff to go in health facilities and communities to talk about our research activities and hear peoples opinion.
Through partnership and collaboration with Ministry of Health and other partners, we participate in the events like VCT day and World AIDs day which are national events done by Ministry of Health, National AIDs Council and District Task Force and we are also members of Technical Working Groups for HIV/AIDs and family planing.
We use all the above, even with insufficient resources we have been able to facilitate the participation of community stakeholders in initial outreach and information gathering. -
Our team ensure community input in two ways, frequent meetings with the CAB, where she share updates about the ongoing research and CAB shares what is going in the community. In those meetings a trust relationship has been created.
Our team is also mapping the stakeholders, key people, organizations… with the goal to strength the our community network. -
Throughout my many years of outreach experience, I have realized that incentives are not always an option. Identifying community stakeholders can fill in the gap of having limited or no resources. I have observed community stakeholder’s “power” of persuasion over the community. In other words, the community stakeholder’s voice is respected and the community trusts this individual will have their best interest in mind and if this individual supports the research, then formal formative research activities can move forward.
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Ensuring community input and support for the overall goal of the engagement program requires first and foremost an understanding of the segments of the community stakeholders involved and their existing structures of social organization. Unless a geographical area is completely naive of research or other activities that bring together some of these stakeholders, there would be some pre-existing structures including networks, community based organizations along with their leaders, representatives and/or gatekeepers. These would offer much needed entry points early on, but should not be considered sufficient and hence more thorough mapping of stakeholders need to be carried out. This must also be based on the exact nature of the research activity for which the enagagement plan is being developed. Such inputs and support early on will ensure that the overall goal-setting process is done with a common purpose and shared values; is more relevant for the local context; and lead to setting of better objectives and defining approapriate activities subsequently..
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Philister
September 27,2016Resources will never be sufficient, because stakeholder engagement is a new area that some research have not yet embraced and in most instances even trials who know the requirements of Good Participatory Practice do not allocate sufficient resources.The most important thing to do is to prioritize activities and consider taking full advantage of informal formative research through identification of stakeholders, conduct community mapping, attend public community forums such as chiefs baraza, county government meetings trial staff to volunteer and become a member of technical working groups within the county such as HIV/AIDS technical working groups or gender technical working group for this offers an opportunity to gather information about the trial their perceptions, through partnership and collaboration with the Ministry of Health and other partners within the region; seat in community informal meetings and gatherings or some are not restricted you can join in, engage in playing pool table with men, sit in women group meetings, youth forums and introduce the trial and get their thoughts, perceptions, cultural considerations that may be there,concerns and challenges.
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The teams can ensure community input and support through engaging the CAB from the beginning and sharing the overall goal with the rest of the community to ensure that everyone understands the goal. This can be done through conducting regular meetings even from the very early planning stages.
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We are in the very early stage of planning community engagement work among MSM communities for an HIV prevention trial in China. We would first identify our stakeholders in each level, seek their advice and understand their expectations for the community engagement work. We would deliver their expectations and input to research team, trial sponsors and clinical team, and to ensure each team has a clear understanding of the importance of community input. We would also invite community stakeholders (such as community leaders, CBOs case managers, or MSM who are interested in our research) to our meetings and bring their valuable experience to help us design our engagement plan and implementation activities.
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When resources are insufficient to support formal formative research activities, we have used religious leaders, Civic leaders as well as business men. As they are talking they also talk about the research activities. We have also used health personnel when they go for sensitization in the community for example prevention of malaria, they also talk about research pending activities. We have also gathered information during clinic health talks from antenatal clinic, under five clinic and other clinic departments. Even with insufficient resources by using the above mentioned methods, we are able to support formal formative research activities to facilitate the participation of community stakeholders in initial outreach and information gathering.
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My responsibilities include providing technical support to Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) from 12 sites on community engagement issues including stakeholder engagement. Each site is expected to submit GPP plans which include stakeholder engagement, this is reviewed twice a year. The review of GPP plans provides an opportunity of ensuring that team members have a common understanding of stakeholder engagement through the discussions that take place in the process. At the beginning of the trial, Community Education Working Group (CEWG) was formed to provide community engagement team members in the ECHO trial a platform to provide update learn from each other, hare best practices and build the capacity of CLOs on different topics related to community engagement.
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I work on an The Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO), community engagement in this trial is undertaken in two levels namely; Global Community Advisory Group (GCAG) and Community Advisory Boards (CABs). The advisory bodies are to ensure that the trial is undertaken in a manner that addresses community’s needs both at local and global level. At local levels, community engagement focuses on policy engagement, building the capacity of women on contraceptive issues including method mix for participants recruitment and retention purposes, while at global level, the focus is on monitoring the discussions on Hormonal Contraceptives and HIV Risk Acquisition. The point of intersection between these two advisory bodies is on advocacy for dual protection as a strategy for HIV prevention for participants and women in the community. At both global and local levels, stakeholder engagement remains the key towards obtaining wider support including the support from the community, national and international NGOs as well as government departments and agencies.
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Thank you very much Nkiru, for sharing your experience from Nigeria in response to this week’s discussion question.
It’s indeed useful to learn how your team did a good mapping early on so that community input was garnered for the overall goal of the engagement program itself. We can see that how this kind of a support from the different community stakeholder segments, for example from religuos leaders in this case, can ensure that there is a common purpose and shared values in setting the goal for the engagement plan. Would be looking forward to hear more experiences in the coming weeks.