What the national Consumer Involvement Committee have been working on

What the national Community and Consumer Involvement Committee have been working on

The Centre’s Community Involvement Framework is underpinned by the principles of being inclusive, working together, learning and development, two-way communication, evaluation and impact and strong governance structure. The Community and Consumer Involvement Committee (the Committee) provide advice and direction to researchers by sharing their lived-experiences and are involved in the planning, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of the Centre’s research, including but not limited to research design and translation questions initiated by other committees, sub-committees or working groups.

The Committee meets every second month online and reports to the Management Steering Group.

Over the last three months, the Committee have provided guidance and advice on a number of projects.  Some of these have been:

• T1D Mobile Health App – a mobile exercise app called “Act1ve” designed to provide T1D treatment advice, based on international guidelines, for children and young people who participate in regular exercise activities such as playing sport.

• Review of Stakeholder and Community Involvement Action Plan – the Centre’s endorsed Stakeholder and Community Involvement Plan was reviewed and an action plan for the next two years was developed by the Centre’s Community Involvement Coordinator.  The Committee had the opportunity to review and provide feedback on the Action Plan to ensure goals identified are relevant and actionable.

• Diabetes Resources – a scoping review was done to identify what types of resources the T1D community need and look for and where these resources can be found, both in hard copy and digitally.  This project will identify gaps in the availability of and access to resources in Australia as well as identify resources that don’t exist but the community need.

• Funding Applications – some members of the Committee have reviewed funding applications to ensure the proposed project meets the needs of the community and outcomes will create impact for the lives of children and young people.  These Consumer Representatives have agreed to be Research Buddies for these projects if applications are successful.  We can share that 98% of the applications submitted in the last three months had Consumer Representatives involved in the development of these applications prior to submission to the relevant funding bodies.

If you are a researcher working with the Centre and would like to seek advice and guidance from the Committee on your project, please contact the Community Involvement Coordinator at community@childrensdiabetesresearch.org.au for more information.