The Survivor Involvement in Research Ladder was produced by Survivors’ Voices in collaboration with Simone Kennedy, as part of her MSc in Public Health degree at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The Ladder is designed to measure and evaluate the quality of survivor involvement in research about survivors. Inspired by the work of Sherry Arnstein and Roger Hart, it builds on the work of our survivor-created Charter for survivor engagement, From Pain to Power. For a copy of the Charter, please see our Charter page.
The Ladder is a tool to help create research that is genuinely co-produced with people who have experienced abuse. A peer-reviewed article evaluating the Ladder as a measurement of survivor involvement in research, Kennedy, S., Bewley, S., Chevous, J., Perôt, C., Vigneri, M. and Bacchus, L.J. (2022) ‘A systematic review that evaluates the extent and quality of involving childhood abuse survivors in shaping, conducting and disseminating research in the UK’. Research for All, 6 (1), 3, 1–25, is published HERE.
Use of the Ladder
We are offering the Ladder as a free download because we want it to make a difference – to help make improve the quality and impact of research that is co-produced with survivors. You can download the Ladder below, or from our Resources page. Please do adhere to the Creative Commons licence at the bottom of the Ladder.
Helping us evaluate the Ladder
We would be pleased to receive your feedback on what was effective about the Ladder and how we can further improve it. How did it inform your thinking and your own individual or your organisation’s practice? Please use the Contact form on this website to send us your thoughts, which can be anonymous. For news of updates and further tools, please make sure you sign up to our newsletter, and choose the Research Involvement Ladder option.
