Introduction
There are few meaningful frameworks or toolkits that exist for involvement with young people. Coproduction is a more recent patient and public involvement (PPI) approach that emphasizes the importance of power‐sharing, to set young people as equal partners in the research process. This paper explores the successes and challenges encountered by one coproduced PPI space for young people.
Methods
This paper is written by a team of young people who developed and worked on the Youth PPI Café over a period of 18 months. It explores how we developed a youth‐led space for involvement in research. The authors have reflected on their experiences, providing examples of how youth PPI and coproduction were delivered in the NHS, in practice.
Results
By working ‘with’ young people, rather than ‘for’ them, we offer insights into the successes and challenges of an entirely youth‐led involvement space. Despite being effective in shaping mental health research for children and young people, we faced challenges with tokenism, resourcing and diversity and inclusion.
Conclusions
Involving youth meaningfully in research has the potential to inform studies at a macro‐ and microlevel, enabling positive change within research and within the systems that support young people.
Patient or Public Contribution
Young people aged 16–24 years with lived experience were included at every stage of this project, from formulation to the delivery and development of the group, to the preparation of this manuscript and its dissemination. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust's charity ‘Heads On’ provided funding for this study.
BackgroundMental health workers are subject to high levels of occupational stress which is associated with poorer health and wellbeing and impaired patient outcomes. For individuals operating in high stress environments, reducing challenge at home, in particular around parenting, has been found to generalize into improvements in the professional domain. The present study sought to investigate the effectiveness and feasibility of brief targeted workplace intervention to support workers in terms of their parental role.Design/MethodologyAn uncontrolled evaluation of a series of three-session parenting-focused courses delivered to employees of a large Mental Health Trust. A pre-post-follow-up design was used to investigate effects on outcomes including parenting practice and experience, wellbeing, stress, and occupational self-efficacy. Intervention feasibility and acceptably was also evaluated.FindingsData from 15 participants who completed measures pre-post indicates the courses were associated with improved parenting practice and experience at a p < 0.005 level. Improvements were reported at 6-month follow up. Participant satisfaction and course acceptability was highly rated by 100% of participants.
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