Research

Why is research important?

Part of what we do at Harmless is to try to improve our own services and to help other services to improve. We work hard to influence broader thinking and policy making decisions so that people can get the right help and in the way that they want to get it. To do this it is important that we do things in a way that allows what we have to say (on your behalf) to be heard. Research is one of those ways.
 
We have always taken pride in the important information that we gather from the people that we help and we use that information to influence some of the things above.
 
We work with external researchers and academic institutions to be able to best represent people who self harm and to ensure that research is looking at the right things and in the right way.
 
More recently we have allocated our own resources to ensure that we are even better at generating research and intellect about self harm so that we can have more influence and so that we can do more good. It is brilliant to have a Researcher in our team and they are consistently working on the data that we collect, and supporting Interns to work on projects close to our heart and ensure that the experiences of the people that we serve are best understood and communicated in a way that people listen.

 

There are lots of ways to get involved. If you are receiving support from us you will be asked right at the start of that support to give your consent for us to use the data that we collect about you for the purpose of research. You can also express an interest in being approached for other projects as and when they come up; just speak to your worker if you want to know more.

If you would like to be notified of any projects that you can get involved with then you can always register your interest in our get involved section. As and when things are open for you to get involved in we will let you know and then it will be your choice whether to get involved.
We are just as keen to capture information and experiences about what it is like to support someone through self harm so there are often projects that you can get involved in that look at this. If you would like to be notified of any projects that you can get involved with then you can always register your interest in our get involved section. As and when things are opportunities for involvement then we will let you know and then it will be your choice whether to get involved.