It may be useful to stay at the end for anyone who wants to speak to you individually or has further questions.

Once you’ve finished, it’s a good idea to have some time as a team or individually to de-brief and reflect on how you are feeling. You can also contact the network team if you’d like to talk, e.g. if it’s been a particularly hard session or you’ve heard some particularly traumatic experiences.

You should follow up or check in with parents and carers afterwards based on their preferences and any agreed safety plans.

After each engagement, it’s useful to take 5-10 minutes, either by yourself or with your team to reflect on: what worked well, what you might do differently in future, and any key actions you need to take afterwards (e.g. follow-up, payment).

It is also important to understand how parents and carers have found the experience and gather any reflections or feedback.

Parents and carers are partners in research, and it is important to build meaningful long-term relationships and engage them throughout the project.

Share your progress, any outcomes, and the impact of your project and your work with everyone who participated.

It is essential you share and involve parents and carers in any outputs. This may include:

• publication plans
• funding applications
• public communications such as blogs, infographics, or videos about the findings.

You should discuss how research will be presented and attributed with participants, particularly whether it will be anonymous or not; inviting their feedback and amends.

For example, if you are including a parent or carer in a grant application as a co-applicant, you may want to write a blog with them about the process and of course, keep them informed about the application.

Remember, even once shared, a parent or carer’s lived experience belongs to them (and their child) and it is their right to ask to withdraw their contribution or for something not to be shared.