Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

This project aims to develop a new partnership between researchers and pediatric patient partners to improve research literacy with and for youth. The project builds on an existing bilingual website called Understanding Research (www.understandingresearch.ca) developed by our team, which explains and demystifies basic concepts of health research. First, we will develop a partnership between the Understanding Research team and the Patient-Family-Community Research Partnership Office at the Sainte-Justine University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada. We will recruit youth partners to form a working group and organize a series of co-construction meetings. Together we will go over the content of Understanding Research and talk about how to improve it and make it more relevant and accessible to young people. To promote participation and inclusion, we will use the Lego Serious Play approach. This facilitation technique uses Lego bricks to help group members represent complex ideas, express their thoughts and feelings, and share stories through building models and talking about them. We will explore creative ways and formats to share information that youth find engaging (for example, animated videos or comics). By building on Understanding Research, co-constructing, and implementing knowledge dissemination strategies that are targeted and attractive to youth, we will amplify youth voices in research literacy and knowledge sharing. By doing so, we hope to help young people understand health research, think critically, and make informed decisions about their health. In other words, the expected outcome of this project is building capacity of young people in research literacy, co-construction, and patient partnership. Ultimately, we aim to inspire, empower, and equip young people to actively engage in and contribute to patient-oriented research.