← Return to Blog

Then and now: find out how we have become experts in groundbreaking research over the last 20 years

You may have seen that last week we launched our new community research webpages, with a spotlight on Trans Aware Cancer Care. This new project aims to raise the level of ambition around eradicating cancer inequalities within the Trans+ community and develop a commitment to act on the solutions our research creates.

However, this is not a new research method or a new way of working for us. Over the last 20 years, Help & Care have been working with partners to empower communities to speak about their experiences. This started in 2003 with the lottery funded ‘Gay and Grey’ project. Using the community research model, Help & Care and Bournemouth University explored the experiences and needs of older lesbian and gay people, supporting older volunteers to undertake and disseminate the research.

Fast forward to today, and we continue this work through our Involving People team at Help & Care. We are proud to be continuing our 20-year long relationship with Bournemouth University as well as working closely with other organisations like Macmillan and Beyond Reflections.

You can read about the history of community research and our journey to becoming experts in the field here. If you’d like to find out more about the community research model and our current work, visit our new webpages here.