Impact in Qualitative Research: Siofra Peeren, Survivors Voices & The Flying Child - Perspectives on trauma-informed public engagement workshops

Síofra Peeren, Jane Chevous, and Sophie Olson reflect on their experiences of trauma-informed public engagement workshops focused on using art to communicate research findings, and the unexpected impacts these had for each of them. Síofra Peeren is a post-doctoral survivor researcher working on a project about pathways to support for trauma at the Service User Research Enterprise at the IoPPN. Jane is a survivor researcher, writer, educator and activist with Survivors Voices. Sophie Olson is a survivor activist, writer, founder and managing director of The Flying Child: a nonprofit organisation improving awareness of child sexual abuse and the consequences of trauma.

Síofra Peeren – Researcher

Survivors of violence, abuse and trauma have long sought ways to turn painful experiences into power to create social change. As both a survivor and a researcher, I believe that involvement in research, if conducted sensitively and safely, is a key vehicle through which survivors’ voices can be heard and create change.

My PhD research aimed to understand the maternity care needs of survivors of sexual violence. During my research, survivors told me about being re-traumatised by care. Too often, women were treated as if they were just a body, not a whole person, and this felt very similar to the way they were treated by those who had abused them. In one word, what survivors needed most from health care providers was empathy.

This focus on empathy inspired me to find a way to communicate my findings through art. Art allows us to have an emotional response to experiences that may be quite alien to us, and so it is a powerful way to increase empathy. I wanted to find a way to communicate to survivors mothers that they were not alone, as many women told me about the shame they felt when they struggled with aspects of pregnancy, birth, motherhood and care.

We wanted involvement to feel liberating, creative and joyful

I worked with a survivor-led organisation, Survivors Voices, to co-facilitate public engagement workshops with a group of survivor mothers and a professional artist. Together, we came up with ideas for artwork to communicate survivors’ experiences of pregnancy, birth and maternity care. We wanted involvement to feel liberating, creative and joyful – three key principles from the Survivors Voices ‘Turning Pain into Power Charter’ (Perôt et al., 2018). So, each workshop began and ended with a grounding session from a trauma-informed yoga instructor, we established group boundaries, and we welcomed all experiences – both positive and negative – into discussions.

It soon became apparent that the workshops themselves were creating impact

Before the workshops, I was focused on the impact the artwork could have (i.e. the output). However, it soon became apparent that the workshops themselves were creating impact. Women told me that the workshops had provided a safe space to connect with other survivor mothers. They had felt able to talk about experiences and feelings that they had not felt able to talk about before, counteracting the silencing and shame that surrounds sexual violence. The artwork produced from the workshops will be showcased in a public exhibition to increase awareness and understanding of maternity care needs among survivors, and may be used in a future resource for survivors and/or service providers.

Below, Jane Chevous from Survivors Voices, who co-facilitated the workshops, and Sophie Olson from The Flying Child, who participated in the workshops, tell us about their experience in their own words.