Collaboration in Mental Health Research

Involving young people meaningfully in mental health research has become a recognised expectation but the resources and guidance available to researchers and young people trying to do this well are scattered, inconsistent in quality, and difficult to find. This project, a collaboration between Science Practice and King's College London, set out to map the existing landscape: identifying what resources are available, understanding the barriers and challenges both sides encounter, and building a foundation for recommending what future resources are needed.

Good resources exist. The problem is that no one knows where they all are.

The Research

The project focused on two parallel questions: what resources exist (covering how researchers can work with young people, and how young people can get involved in research), and what barriers and challenges both researchers and young people face when trying to collaborate. The output was a curated resource list - videos, written documents, podcasts, and websites, together with an analysis of the gaps, to inform recommendations for what future resources should be developed.

My Involvement

I contributed to this project as a young person with lived experience of research involvement, providing input on the barriers and challenges that young people face when engaging with mental health research, and on what kinds of resources would be genuinely useful from a young person's perspective. [PLACEHOLDER: Additional detail on involvement activities and role to be added.]