LAUSR

ABSTRACT The Converge Evaluation and Research Team (CERT) is a group of UK-based researchers with lived experience of mental health difficulties. There is growing international pressure from major research funders that research projects should be co-produced with those people being researched. This article explores how CERT researchers have sought to achieve such allyship in their work across five projects, including choosing user-friendly interview methods such as photographs and music; allowing participants to decide on language; deciding which areas of research should be prioritised; and training participants in interviewing so that they can interview alongside CERT researchers. Across the projects described here, it emerged that small talk between the CERT researcher and the participant prior to, and during the interview – in particular, the sharing of mutual experiences of living with mental health difficulties – appears to be extremely important to creating allyship between them. Creating allyship is an important component of ensuring participants ultimately benefit from the research through greater validity of, and increased real-world relevance of, the findings. The author identifies as having lived experience of mental health difficulties and considers allyship from the dual perspective of both having lived experience and as a researcher.