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This article refers to the Global Shapers Community which is a network of young people driving dialogue, action and change. With community organizations and people who are experts by experience, the Global Shapers continue to drive the mental health movement through their incredible campaigning activity and formidable drive and will develop innovative mental health programmes in their own parts of the world.
Exploring the different ways that young people with lived experience of mental health challenges can influence decisions about what is researched and how, to find the best ways to enable them to lead on mental health research and innovation from the start.
Wellcome’s Mental Health Challenge Area funds and supports research to transform the way we understand, prevent, and treat anxiety, depression, and psychosis in young people.
If we are trying to find new interventions, it goes without saying that we should work alongside people with lived experience expertise to make this happen. However, we know that young people are most likely to be involved in the later stages of research, such as data collection, but less likely to be involved in setting the agenda by deciding which concerns should get the most attention, or identifying research questions.
Our hope is that by increasing our understanding of how young people with lived experience can influence decisions early in the research process (especially in agenda setting) and what needs to change to make that happen, then we can foster research and innovation that better aligns with their needs and experiences.
We are currently working with Science Practice to explore how people aged 14–24 with lived experience of anxiety, depression, or psychosis can shape mental health research and innovation in its earliest stages, before projects start, by contributing to decisions such as:
To explore how we could help open up these opportunities, we are currently speaking with key stakeholders in India, Uganda, and the UK.
This panel is part of a programme of partnership work between NSUN and Mind, including our project on mapping what is known as “Lived Experience Leadership”. Shown at the Youth Lived Experience Activism Panel - NSUN AGM 2020
Chair: Amy Wells Panellists: Denise Brown (4 Young Minds), Liv Wynter (artist/Hearts and Minds), and Rosie Tressler (Student Minds).
The mental health system is failing young people. So we’re leading our own movement – demanding our rights to a healthy mind and a brighter future.
The Our Minds Our Future Manifesto outlines our vision for a rights-respecting mental health system in England. It’s part of a project that’s engaging young people in every nation of the UK to speak out on what they want mental health services to look like where they are. The manifesto was produced by young people who are part of Make Our Rights Reality, a movement of young people who know their rights and how to fight for them. Our team is made up of local groups of ‘Rights Advocates’ across the country who fight for their rights locally, and the staff team at the national charity Youth Access who deliver on strategy laid out by young people.
Through the Our Minds Our Future campaign, we’re standing up for young people’s right to access mental health support in their communities – support that meets their specific needs and sees them as whole individuals, not just a diagnosis to be filed.
A UK website, Mental Health Foundation (MHF) Young Leaders enables young people to work in partnership with a leading mental health charity to make a real difference to young people’s mental health.
The MHF Young Leaders project aims to enable young people work in the areas of:
The National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum and the National Primary Health Network Mental Health Lived Experience Engagement Network acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters on which we work and live on across Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.
“A lived experience recognises the effects of ongoing negative historical impacts and or specific events on the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It encompasses the cultural, spiritual, physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of the individual, family or community.
“People with lived or living experience of suicide are those who have experienced suicidal thoughts, survived a suicide attempt, cared for someone through a suicidal crisis, been bereaved by suicide or having a loved one who has died by suicide, acknowledging that this experience is significantly different and takes into consideration Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ways of understanding social and emotional wellbeing.” - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lived Experience Centre
We welcome Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to this site and invite them to provide any feedback or items for inclusion.
We also recognise people with lived and living experience of mental ill-health and recovery and the experience of people who are carers, families, kin, or supporters.