Researching with [vulnerable] people

During Action for Children’s summer residency with Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchange, I was asked to give a talk on my experiences researching with vulnerable people and children. Having this space to reflect on my work at the charity made me realise that the wider research community may also be interested in hearing what I’ve learned about working with people we traditionally think of as ‘vulnerable’ — which is why I’m writing this blog.

A word about vulnerability

We use this word a lot, but I’m not sure it’s always clear just what we mean by vulnerability. Who can and can’t be vulnerable? The Cambridge Dictionary defines vulnerable as the ability to “be easily physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, influenced, or attacked.” I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a decent description of the human condition. We are all vulnerable in certain situations, at certain times. So, rather than thinking about who is or isn’t eligible to be categorised as vulnerable — and therefore, which researchers this blog will be relevant to — perhaps we should consider vulnerability as something that any researcher may come across when trying to understand the needs and motivations of people.

Preparation is everything

Good research requires preparation. There’s no point conducting research without knowing why you’re doing it, and how best you can retrieve the information needed. Vulnerability, however, is often an unknown, and difficult to anticipate. Since setting up the UX function at Action for Children just over a year ago, I’ve built several contingencies into my planning that try to reduce that uncertainty.

• Spend more time on introductions and ice breakers. Often, when someone feels vulnerable, it can be difficult to concentrate on details. Therefore, time must be taken at the beginning of a session to ensure participants fully understand why they are being consulted and what they are consenting to. This may mean repeating instructions, schedules and plans several times. They also need space to ask any clarifying questions so they (and you) are confident that they are participating with full consent. Finally, having a solid ice breaker is important to build trust and rapport — important for all participants, but especially critical for those who are vulnerable and need this extra time to settle into a research session.
• Build in buffer time in case people need more, or longer, breaks. Naturally, research with children is typically shorter and has more breaks than sessions with adults. Similarly, when discussing sensitive topics such as foster care or separation, I have often expected participants to need extra breaks. However, even the more innocuous topics can prompt emotional responses — for instance, a recent interview with a parent about the benefits of children’s centres led to disclosures of loneliness and poor mental health. Having extra time in my back pocket so this parent could take a break, compose themselves and return to the interview with a fresh head not only meant that their experience of the research wasn’t hindered by this trigger (side note: how often do we consciously consider the user experience of our research participants?), but that I was still able to achieve my research objectives.
• Use interactive methods to keep people motivated and attentive. These are already widely used with children and young people because, let’s face it, how many 10-year-olds do you know who want to sit still for an hour and be questioned by an adult? Yet, they’re also useful for working with vulnerable people of all ages, because activity can reduce the intensity of an interview, diverting focus away from the individual who may feel that a particular line of questioning is stressful, traumatic, exposing. Often, when I notice a participant starting to respond defensively to questions, or if they indicate non-verbally that they’re disengaging because they feel uncomfortable (loss of eye contact, agitation and poor concentration are common examples), I’ll switch things up — getting people on their feet, giving them markers to draw with, or roleplaying a ‘hypothetical’ scenario that gives some distance between their personal experiences and the topic in hand.
• Adapt your language, style and approach for who you’re researching with, and where you’re doing it. Setting up a focus group in a public space to talk about deeply personal issues may not work very well, for example. Simple, neutral language, free of jargon is a standard we hopefully all use —especially given GDS’ reminder that the average reading age of the UK population is just 9 years old! But we also need to think about how cognitive development milestones impact understanding — asking complex questions in an interview setting won’t work well on very young children, for instance. While researchers aren’t expected to know about cognitive development in great detail, with enough planning in place it’s easy to locate people who may be able to help with this. For instance, I run my research plans with young children by an early years practitioner before I start. When working with trauma survivors, having a pre-research meeting with their support worker can help to give context and identify any particular triggers or challenges to my approach — meaning I have the time to adapt and ultimately improve the research experience for everyone involved.
• How is easier to answer than why. This is such an important learning for me that I want to highlight it separately from the broader point on adapting language. Finding the words to answer the question ‘why’ can be really difficult. Children can really struggle to understand the why to their thoughts or behaviours — think of a time you’ve asked a child to explain why they’ve done something (usually it’s something they’re not supposed to be doing) and they just shrug or give a sheepish ‘don’t know’. Similarly, people dealing with vulnerability can sometimes feel like ‘why’ is accusatory or judgmental in tone. Therefore, re-framing that ‘why’ into ‘how’ takes some of the pressure off, while still getting the qualitative depth of answer that is required.
• Think about aftercare. I feel quite strongly about the ethical responsibility of a researcher, especially when working with vulnerable people or children. While we must retain our professional distance, and as part of the previously mentioned introductions make it clear what our role is and what we can and cannot do to support an individual, I always try to anticipate the types of triggers that may come up in a research session — so I know what I must do if this person, after disclosing their personal experiences to me, needs a helping hand. For me, this might mean preparing a hand-out that signposts what support is available in the area, or (with the individual’s consent) introducing them to a relevant service at Action for Children.

I hope this has been a useful outline of what I’ve learned about working with vulnerability. If there’s one thing I’d you take away from this blog, it’s that anyone can be vulnerable. While we, as researchers, can leave a session and feel like our work is done, for an individual who has just shared their lived experience, they will be coping with that experience for time to come.