Youth advisory group meetings get underway

The two new Youth Advisory Groups have begun meeting online at the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health.

The groups are made up of young people between the ages of 14-25 with lived mental health experience, who have volunteered to assist, guide and evaluate the youth mental health research taking place at the Wolfson Centre.

Emma Meilak from the Wolfson Centre, who is the group facilitator, said: “In September we held our inaugural Youth Advisory Group virtual meetings and we have been thrilled with how the sessions have gone so far.

“Our groups are split into two, with a younger group made up of those aged between 14-18 and our second group with older young people between 19 and 25. We are so grateful to all our group members for their enthusiasm and engagement so far.”

The first meeting was a chance to introduce the young people to the Centre and to welcome the group members, enabling the groups to get to know one another and the Centre team, as well as setting ground rules for the sessions going forward. The October session offered the young people training on public health and research methods and introduced them to their first piece of Wolfson research for analysis: a mental health toolkit for schools, being designed by Dr Olga Eyre.

Following the session, one of the new Youth Advisors said: “I really want to share my experiences in order to improve research and the quality of care that places can provide. I’m really passionate about it and interested in how mental health research works in real life after studying it as part of my degree.”

Emma concluded: “We are all really excited to see how our youth advisory groups will grow and develop over the coming years. Co-production and collaboration are at the heart of what we want to do here at the Wolfson Centre and our advisory groups will ensure that we put young people’s voices and experiences at every stage of our research.”

The Wolfson Centre Youth Advisory Groups meet online every month. Opportunities to join the advisory groups will be advertised at the start of every term on the Centre’s website and social media channels.

If you’d like to find out more about the Youth Advisory Group or express an interest in joining, please email wolfsonyoungpeople@cardiff.ac.uk