Challenge
In an era where caregiving faces unprecedented challenges—exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the aging of the gray generation, a dire shortage of caregivers, and the need to extend working ages, we partnered with a major Caregiver company for a project aimed at discovering new facets of caregiver experiences.
The goal was to uncover caregivers' lived experiences and support systems and address the barriers and challenges they face so that our client could align their value proposition to caregiver needs.
“Moxie's research was thorough and comprehensive. Their focus on drawing insights from caregivers with a breadth of lived experience has contributed to our understanding of the needs of the people we serve as we look to improve our products and services”
The Client
Caregiving is a silent service that often goes unpaid and underappreciated. The client sought to change this dynamic by developing programs and services that provide caregivers with resources and support to ensure their ongoing ability to provide care.
Supported by teams of caregivers, nurses, and social workers, the company has developed both in-person care models and innovative tech solutions to support caregivers.
As a leader in the field, the client has successfully introduced these caregiver-centered care models across the United States.
Client Collaboration in the Research
The client had social workers and nurses on staff who were also caregivers. We established two key groups for our research. First, a core research team with designers and researchers from Moxie as well as client staff members who were interested in taking part in the research process. Secondly, we established an advisory board of caregivers from the client’s staff to ensure that our approaches were trauma-informed.
Approach
We engaged caregivers and staff members across 6 states using in-person observations, in-person interviews, mobile ethnographies, and surveys.
This approach ensured that the voices of those most affected by caregiving challenges had multiple ways to share their experience and validated the data collected. Caregivers participated in how we understood and synthesized the data and helped prioritize the most pressing insights.
Approaches that helped the co-creative process
Part of a participatory research and design approach means including and training non-researchers in the research process. Our role in turn is to at times, teach, facilitate, and do. This approach helps clients see the research throughout many phases and as a result, feel more grounded and connected to the outcomes.
Project Kickoff Bias Tool
We use this tool at the start of a project to help members of the core research team (which includes the client) explore how their identity, values, emotions, biases, and power assumptions influenced their views and relationship to the project.
Observation Exercise
Observation played a key role in the research process as we were observing the caregiver’s experience with the client’s caregiver app. Before going into caregivers' homes we trained the members of the core research team on how to use observation as a research skill. This exercise helps individuals distinguish between what they may see and their interpretation of it. You can read more about that approach here.
Audio Member Checking
An essential part of our process is to make the data analysis process accessible to non-researchers and specifically to the people we’ve interviewed.
Moxie’s audio member-checking approach and sessions with other caregivers created a space for Caregivers to share their experiences on their terms without the expectation of having to re-hash their stories for the sake of our research process. You can read more about this approach on our blog.
Insights map
To make sense of our deep dive into the caregiving world, we developed a detailed, multi-tiered theme map that organized the many aspects of caregiving experiences.
Our exploration ranged, touching on everything from the financial struggles caregivers go through, to their mental health, and the intricate dynamics of their relationships.
This essential tool helped us provide deeper insights into caregiving's complex interactions and challenges. Furthermore, it helped the client see a big-picture view of overall themes from the data.
Here are some of the highlights that members in the core research team appreciated about the approaches:
“The open communication and honesty, the transparency and inclusion of broader team members and caregivers in the work, the flexibility and ability to pull the cord/slow down or speed up."
“The sessions that stick out for me are the ones that we got to finally hear about caregiver and employee experiences! Hearing the stories continues to motivate me in my work here."
Impact
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is at the heart of our research approach. This meant that Caregivers needed to benefit from our process beyond payment or reimbursement. We offered aftercare sessions with social workers for caregivers who had further emotions to process post-interviews or workshops.
Insights for Action
The client drew on the key insights throughout the research process to influence the design of their learning programs and resources for Caregivers. As some of the staff from the learning team were members of the research team - they were able to implement research insights along the way.
The Executive Leadership team also had access to the insights and final research and drew on the insights and strategic questions to develop a roadmap for their product. Having access to the research at multiple levels of the organization helped the team take long term action.
Caregiving is an experience that touches all of us at one point or another. Having a support system, tools and expertise in place to help caregivers in their day-to-day lives provides better outcomes for everyone. We were thrilled to have a client who was open to a participatory research and design approach.