Young mental health research: Listen to Act accept award for Patient and Public Involvement
23rd January 2024
Listen to Act was thrilled to accept the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Project Competition Award 2023 on behalf of the ARC Outreach Alliance programme.
The ARC Outreach Alliance (AOA) is a children and young people’s mental health network in Northwest London bringing researchers, practitioners, health professionals, charities, local authorities and members of the public who live or work in the area together. They help to shape and share research and to provide opportunities to collaborate on children and young people’s (CYP) mental health initiatives.
The competition was launched this year to recognise outstanding, innovative, and impactful PPIE activities or initiatives that have positively affected patient participation across an entire specialty.
Listen to Act accepted the award and presented to delegates at the NIHR BRC Annual Meeting earlier this month. The presentation outlined the steps we have taken to implement a sustainable model of youth participation in shaping and informing mental health research and plugging gaps in knowledge on young people’s mental health priorities across North West London. This was achieved through our distinct approach to youth engagement and expertise in the field.
What this looks like in practice, is a thriving advisory group of young people representing the eight local authorities of North West London who are at the forefront of conversations about young people’s mental health and associated research in the region.
We were proud to accept the award with Isra, a young person who has been volunteering on the programme with us and she shared some words on what it meant to her to be involved in this work.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the BRC, all of our colleagues on the programme, community partners, and most importantly, each and every one of the inspiring young people who have been involved. None of this would have been achievable without the hard work of all of you.
What’s next?
Look out for the launch of our short promotional film which was planned, written, filmed, and edited by the young people on this programme.
Our key partners: Imperial College London, National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Northwest London.