By Evelyne Kane, Danielle Hodges, et al., The National Center for Complex Health & Social Needs, May 2021
Since 2016 the National Center has engaged grassroots leaders from across the country in our National Consumer Scholars program. Consumer Scholars are individuals with lived experience of complex health and social needs, or caregivers of people who identify as such. Consumer Scholars also have experience working as consumer advisors and advocates alongside complex care organizations across the country. In past years, the National Center primarily worked with Consumer Scholars by supporting their participation in our annual Putting Care at the Center conference. For the 2019-2020 cohort, we were able to expand the program so that teams of Consumer Scholars spent about nine months partnering with departments across the Camden Coalition, which houses the National Center, working on a variety of projects. Examples of these projects included:
- Co-leading a research project to explore consumer engagement experiences;
- Supporting the development of a technical assistance toolkit;
- Planning and hosting a national webinar; and
- Co-designing our new consumer voices bureau, Amplify.
Our Consumer Scholar research team worked with a member of the Camden Coalition’s data and evaluation team to design and conduct a survey to explore consumer engagement experiences from the perspectives of complex care consumers as well as from staff and providers at complex care organizations. To share the outcomes of this project, we wrote a research brief which we are excited to share with the complex care field.
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