Past project

Right People, Right Questions

Discovering the top research priorities for young people’s mental health

Project overview

We conducted a James Lind Alliance (JLA) priority-setting partnership (PSP) to help support our understanding of children and young people’s mental health.

It brought together children and young people (including those with lived experience of mental health problems), families, professionals and academics to identify the top 10 priorities for research in children and young people’s mental health.

Project details

There is pressure on mental health services to improve treatments and support for young people. Current interventions do not appear to be meeting the demand or tackling the causes.

This project brings new insight by listening to those directly affected – young people themselves.

Alongside others, they identified where they felt the important gaps in research are.

The aim was to influence which research gets funded going forward, and ultimately improve the mental health of children and young people.

McPin led a consortium of groups interested in children and young people’s mental health, made up of: MQ, the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, the Matthew Elvidge Trust, and Mental Health Research UK.

We formed a steering group of young people, parents, education and mental health professionals and academics to guide the process, as well as a project-specific young people’s advisory group of 11-25 year olds.

Both groups were involved with decision-making at each step of the project.

  • In 2017, we launched two national public surveys. The first was open from July to November and asked people to submit questions they would like answered about children and young people’s mental health. We received over 2,600 responses asking over 5,000 questions.
  • We then organised the responses and checked whether any existing research already answered the questions.
  • Our second survey in 2018 asked the public to select their top ten questions from the questions we couldn’t find existing answers for. We looked at all the responses, paying attention to which groups rated which questions as the most important. The survey was open for three weeks and we received over 750 responses.
  • The final prioritisation workshop then brought together young people, parents, teachers, mental health professionals and researchers to prioritise the top 10 unanswered research from these.

We announced the list at Houses of Parliament in November 2018. You can find it

The closing step is to develop a list of the questions that the public submitted that were already answered by research. This will be done alongside the Young People’s Advisory Group.

Project resources

Infographic
Infographic

Right People Right Questions: How did we get to the top 10?

An infographic sharing how we ended up with the top 10 research priorities for young people in the Right People, Right Questions project
Young people | 24th February 2023
Project report
Project report

Research priorities for children and young people’s mental health supplementary report

Right people right questions: Top 10 most pressing, unanswered questions about children and young people’s mental health, we convened a Young People’s Advisory Group and steering group - supplementary
Mental health services • Young people | 20th February 2023
Project report
Project report

Research priorities for children and young people’s mental health: Interventions and services

Right people right questions: To identify the Top 10 most pressing, unanswered questions about children and young people’s mental health, we convened a Young People’s Advisory Group and steering group
Mental health services • Young people | 20th February 2023

Work with us

We are always excited to hear from others who want to collaborate on mental health research. From delivering peer research to helping you with public involvement strategies and providing training, get in touch to chat.