SIS Service Users face barriers to taking part in Health and Social Care Research, including language, culture, and knowledge. However, culturally informed engagement, trusted relationships, and accessible, language supported research design can reduce these.
SIS’s experience with Community Research started almost 10 years ago with the 2016 International Migrants Needs Assessment for Brighton and Hove City Council.
In the last two years alone, approximately 180 Sussex residents whose first or preferred language isn’t English have participated in SIS Community Research projects. This research is carried out by Bilingual Community Researchers who have a shared cultural and language background with their participants. In recent years, SIS Bilingual Community Researchers have worked with participants speaking Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Farsi, French, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sorani, Spanish, and Turkish.
Some of our Community Research is done through SIS being a VCSE partner of the Sussex Research Engagement Network (REN). As part of this we have supported 7 Bilingual Community Researchers to undertake research in Sussex REN projects including the lived experience cancer research project, and women’s mental health research.
In this short video, SIS Bilingual Community Researchers and Participants share their experiences of taking part in Community Research:
- Overcoming barriers
- The importance of representation
- Getting involved
This video was commissioned for the Building Partnerships event organised by Trust for Developing Communities for the Sussex REN in March 2026. The event invited Sussex health and care teams, NHS, academic, heath and care research teams, community researchers, local authorities and voluntary sector and research partners to come together to share insights and explore collaborations.
