DWP User Researcher wanting to interview UC claimants with complex needs

See below - if you might have clients who can help or have any other questions, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I will put you in touch with the researcher.

About our team and study

We are a strategy team in Universal Credit (UC) working on helping claimants who have complex needs and experience significant barriers while accessing the service.

Universal Credit currently doesn’t specifically ask claimants about their complex needs when they create their account. This information is sometimes revealed to Work Coach’s in Job Centres however this is not always consistently collected and recorded.

With this research, we would like to understand if Universal Credit claimants with complex needs:

- Would be willing to share their complex needs with UC?
- What information would they feel comfortable sharing?
- How would they like to share this information?
- How would they expect this information to be used?

About the interviews

The interviews will be held between Monday 12th June and Friday 16th and

- Will last 30-60 minutes depending on claimants’ availability.
- Will be usually held during work hours (9am – 5pm).
- Will either take place remotely, via Microsoft Teams or will be conducted face-to-face (dependant on location of - participant)

We need your help to find participants.

As an organisation that supports claimants we believe you could be a valuable source for us to get in touch with the right audience for this study.

We are interested in finding 2 participants who

- Are currently claiming or in the process of claiming Universal Credit
- Have complex needs
- Can participate in 30-60 mins interviews either remotely or in-person dependant on location.
- Does not have to but can experience other complex needs

(Adults with Complex needs are defined as people who are experiencing one or more difficult life events such as illness, disability, or broader life circumstances such as homelessness, domestic violence etc. and need support with multiple aspect of their daily life including getting access to stable housing, healthcare, financial, mental, or social support.)

As a thank you for their time, we’d like to offer participants £40 worth of Love2Shop vouchers for a 60 min interview.

How we protect our participants’ rights

The participation in this study is voluntary and will not impact the claimant’s Universal Credit claim in any way. They can leave the conversations at any time without giving a reason. We will record the session only if they give us permission to audio record the session. We may take notes. The recording and/or notes will only be used by the researcher for analysis purposes. The findings will be anonymised and confidential.