Every page in this course comes from something you can read yourself. The links are here.
Why this page exists
This course makes claims about research. You should be able to check them.
Each link below opens a real document. Some are long. The short note tells you what each one is for.
The research the role comes from
The link worker model
Fryer and colleagues, 2025. The study that describes the community research link worker role.
It is open access, so you can read all of it. Open the paper.
This course takes the role description, the six steps and the training outline from here. It is one study, in South Yorkshire.
A study that used link workers
Linton and colleagues, 2025. A study about contraception, where three link workers recruited and ran groups.
Free to read. Open the paper.
This is where the training content comes from: ethics, running a group, and making sense of what people said. It also shows how they reached people who do not use email.
What it feels like to do the job
A blog from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, written from interviews with link workers.
This is where the pages on belonging and on being paid come from.
The standards and the money
The UK standards for involvement
Six standards that say what good public involvement looks like.
There is an Easy Read booklet on the same page. That version is worth having.
What you should be paid
The national guidance on payment, with the current rates.
Rates change. Check this page before you agree an amount.
If you want to go further
A guide to training community researchers
Woolrych and colleagues, 2025. How one project trained people from a community to do research in their own community.
It is a long document. The day plan is the useful part.
The law, if you need it
Two laws sit behind the consent page. You do not need to read them. They are here in case someone tells you something that sounds wrong.
One honest limit
No published study tests a link worker training against an assessment. The full course proposes one. It has not been tested either.
So the pages here describe good practice, not proven practice. Take what is useful, and tell the team where it does not fit.