Young co-researchers from the Agency projects doing us proud

The Agency project is a great example of co-research. McPin worked hard to make sure the young researchers felt safe and heard. Key ingredients were training, taking breaks, good facilitation, risk assessment, inclusivity, planning, money, reflection and momentum. #AMHDMshowcase

Great to be part of day 2 of the #AMHDMshowcase. Sharing work from the Agency in practice project. Learn more about the project here mcpin.org/project/agen... @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social #thisismyplace - As part of Children's Mental Health week

For #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek listen to this podcast by the Royal College of Psychiatrists where Matthew Broome, Rose McCabe, Michael Larkin, and I talk about the importance of agency in youth mental health #epistemicinjustice #philsky #philpsy

Bursting with joy and pride to hear the fantastic presentation by the Agency projects team at the UKRI showcase! @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social #AMHDShowcase #philsky #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek mcpin.org/project/agen...

Building agency in young people is like a ladder: Involvement in decision making, affirming capacity, refain from objectification, legitimise help-seeking, validate experiences. #AMHDMshowcase

In our next session at #AMHDMshowcase: Prof Rose McCabe and team present "Agency In Practise" A collaborative presentation exploring agency in mental health – presented by researchers, clinicians and people with lived experience together. 🔗 mcpin.org/project/agency @CityStGeorges @McPinFdn

Yesterday we gathered views from young people partners and researchers at #AMHDMshowcase. Sharing what they would like to see on a new lived experiences collaborative resources platform, funded by UKRI and Wellcome. Great work team! #thisismyplace - As part of Children's Mental Health week

This is a peer reviewed book chapter from the Agency projects, funded under #AMHDM. As a team, we thought a lot about what we meant by 'expertise'. Three of us wrote this to articulate some of the key principles. publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/45...

As part of #AMHDMshowcase today we heard from young person advisory group members in a panel discussion on involvement of young people in research – impacts and lessons learned. This session was chaired by McPin’s research director @vanessapinfold.bsky.social @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social

This year's Children’s Mental Health Week theme is: This is my place At the Wolfson Centre, young people’s voices belong in research. Their lived experience helps shape better questions, better methods, and better outcomes for mental health 💛 Research that affects young people should include them.

Young people describe some online mental health content as 'dangerous' – but what makes other content helpful? ✅ What helps & hinders youth mental health content use ✅ Tips for creating engaging content ✅ Youth-led solutions from researchers & young people #SocialMedia #YouthMentalHealth 🧵 THREAD

Cont. #ayearinreview #philsky Contributed to a resource for school staff supporting young people who seek help for their mental health mcpin.org/resource/age... in partnership with the wonderful @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social and @rachelred94.bsky.social #epistemicinjustice @wellcometrust.bsky.social

The Young people's team at @mcpinfoundation.bsky.social @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social recently did youth mental first aid training. Here's why we recommend that anyone working in youth involvement does the course mcpin.org/youth-mental...

*JOB ALERT* 👀 Our friends at Emerging Minds are recruiting for a NEW Children and Young people’s Involvement and Engagement Facilitator for the Centre based in Oxford. More info here www.psych.ox.ac.uk/work-with-us...

Read my post for the APA blog, Rules of Engagement: blog.apaonline.org/2025/11/10/r... Arguing that epistemologists can join impactful interdisciplinary projects that contribute to improving social interactions #philsky #philpsy #philosophyforeveryone #epistemicinjustice #philosophymatters

This involved understanding how mental health professionals can support or prevent young people from feeling understood when they seek help. Epistemic injustice in clinical encounters is where one party has more authority and risks the other party’s contribution being sought or valued.

Read the report here bci-hub.org/documents/ep... And find out more about the Agency project here mcpin.org/project/agen... and Agency-in-Practice mcpin.org/project/agen... @ipanalysis.bsky.social @lisabortolotti.com @matthewbroome.bsky.social @rachelred94.bsky.social @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social

Agency-In-Practice YPAG member, Josh, shares about attending his second ever conference, Qualitative Methods in Psychology, and how it built on what he has learned as a young person finding his feet at big events! Read his blog here 👉 tinyurl.com/28aefjw4

Bluesky #youthinvolvement people! I am seeking young people (aged 10–24) to share their experiences as collaborators in health research for an upcoming book project. Participation can take part via chat, workshop, or writing (€20–25 voucher). Link to express interest: tinyurl.com/youthinhealt...

Some of our YPAG members have co-authored on papers as a part of this project too! Take a read of one of the papers here👉 www.jaacap.org/article/S089...

Our young people's advisory group are working with researchers from the Wolfson Centre to better understand the link between ADHD and depression in young people 👧👦 You can find about this work by clicking on the link here to our website: mcpin.org/project/how-...

October is ADHD awareness month 🧡 Did you know that young people with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are around five-times more likely to experience depression than those without?

For this year, the theme for Black History Month is Standing Firm in Power and Pride – so what better time to introduce the B.Life project, or simply put: ‘Black Life, period.’

Good communication, developing a culture that was honest, authentic & transparent, building trust, & ensuring projects that members were advising on were of interest & engaging to them were also all raised as essential for PPI work. Find out what else came up here 👉 rdcu.be/ezDE1

In young people’s grps, 17 papers shared how they created safe spaces to ensure group members were in an environment that was physically, emotionally, socially & mentally comfortable. 5 talked about creating space for youth leadership & minimising adult influence in the space.

Are you interested in getting involved in mental health research as a young person, or want to know how future patient & public involvement could be better? Our ‘emerging practice in PPI’ paper came up with recurring themes & recommendations for doing this work. Find out more 👇

📢 New paper 📢 Our protocol for the Supporting Adolescents with Self-Harm (SASH) trial is now published! The SASH trial is testing a brief strengths based intervention for young people presenting to A&E in crisis: bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/9... @rachelred94.bsky.social @dennisougrin.bsky.social

Training announcement! 📢 Want to learn how you can use patient & public involvement (PPI) in your research in a more inclusive way? We’re running a course of 3 online PPI training sessions in Nov & Dec 2025. Don't miss out - find out more & register here 👉 www.mcpin.org/work-with-us/training/

Presentation complete! We enjoyed sharing our approach to dialogical co-analysis with young people with the Qualitative research community at @qmip.bsky.social thanks for having us! 😀 #QMIP2025

More positively, very excited for our team to also be talking about this at QMiP tomorrow - a coproduced new methodology for conducting co-analysis with young people collaborativeresearch.co.uk/dca

With McPin, we prepared a set of suggestions for supporting young people, based on our research on the Agency Projects. What do you think of our leaflet? www.canva.com/design... #YouthMentalHealth #EpistemicInjustice #philsky #philpsy

We're at the Qualitative methods in psychology conference - Another opportunity to share our approach to doing co-analysis with young people as part of our Agency-In-practice project 👌 Let's goooo! #QMIP2025

New podcast! My take on our agency projects. Spanning motivation, challenges, methods, outcomes, and future applications. #philsky #philpsy #epistemicinjustice open.spotify.com/episode/76Uf...

What are the do's and don't's when having a conversation with a young person about their mental health? Check out the cheat sheet leaflet for adults, designed by Philosopher @lisabortolotti.com with input from our Agency-in-practice Young People's Advisory Group mcpin.org/resource/age...

In 2024 we worked with young people to design a Trevor Project survey on the experiences of 9,600 LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 to 24 across the UK. Report now live 👇 www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-inter...

Epistemic Justice in Mental Healthcare: Free to download, 20% off for the hard copy with the code #epistemicinjustice #philsky #psychiatry #psychology #booksky #newbooks #openaccess @springernature.com

Enjoyed lunching in London with this lovely lot today as part of celebrating our Agency-In-practice project led by the incredible @ipanalysis.bsky.social great to see the YPAG in person. Next steps - disseminating our youth co-analysis methodology far and wide!

In this blog Tom, Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG) member and experienced co-researcher shares his takeaways. With advice on getting involved in and working with young people in research, as part of the EXCITE project. mcpin.org/youth-resear... #involvement @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social

Yesterday we had our @mcpinypnetwork.bsky.social YPAG kickoff meeting for exploring the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and anxiety across UK and Brazil - led by University of Bristol. We'll also be training our Brazil colleagues in meaningful youth involvement practices 🌎

In May, 2 of our McPin team members along with 2 young people with lived experience spoke at an event, addressing the question "what makes an emotionally healthy school?". In this blog piece, they share their reflections from the event. Got 5 mins? Give it a read! 🙂 mcpin.org/what-makes-a...

Here’s what Annie, one of our Public Involvement in Research Managers, had to say about being part of a community. #mentalhealthawarenessweek #MHAW

What are the risks and benefits of social media influencers for youth mental health? Here in Birmingham for the youth jury event - let's gooo! 💪 #mentalhealth

You can read our commitments, and why we think the mental health sector should be doing more for trans rights, on the @nsunnews.bsky.social website 👉 bit.ly/4jbqrPB

Free on Friday afternoon & interested in young people's mental health? Come join 2 of our lovely team as they speak at the 'Emotionally Healthy Schools: Engaging the Therapy Professions' event! Date: Fri 25 April Time: 5-7pm Place: Online Cost: Free Find out more & register here 👉 bit.ly/42JqDhU

Next week, YP team members Eva and Emma will be sharing some of the insights we’ve learned across many of our projects about promoting mental health in schools. 🏫 Hear from them and many other experts about promoting positive wellbeing in schools. Tickets are free: onlinevents.co.uk/event/emotio...

Your first ever research conference can be scary - but it doesn’t need to be!😅 19 year-old @mcpinfoundation.bsky.social YPAG member Josh attended his first conference, as part of the Agency-in-practice project - led by @ipanalysis.bsky.social Read about Josh's experience mcpin.org/young-people...

Become a Midlands Youth Advisor! This opportunity can make a positive impact on the lives of young people and, we hope, the future of #MentalHealthResearch @unibirmingham.bsky.social @imh-uob.bsky.social

Our Public Involvement in Research Manager @awalsh9890.bsky.social shares her story of antipsychotic meds & weight gain as the RESOLVE study draws to a close with a conference today! Read her blog here 👉 bit.ly/440iV5j And hear advice from a lived experience group member 👇 @drjohowe01.bsky.social

⭐New YPAG opportunity⭐ Co-design youth involvement practices in mental health research and deliver training to our colleagues in Brazil Must have prior experience of being in a YPAG/co-researcher Please pass on the opportunity below to anyone who might be interested!