What’s the project?
Difficult childhood experiences and their role in anxiety across Brazil and the UK
In this exciting new project funded by the Wellcome, we are teaming up with University of Bristol and universities in Sao Paulo and Pelotas (Brazil) to look at how and why young people develop anxiety after encountering difficult experiences in their childhood. Examples of these difficult experiences (otherwise known as Adverse Childhood Experiences) include difficulties in home life, bereavement and bullying. The study will use existing routine data sets collected by health or education systems to explore associations in both young people living in the UK and Brazil.
As a secondary outcome of this project, we will be supporting our colleagues in Brazil to establish their own youth involvement model. We will then evaluate this approach to understand what worked well and what could be done to improve models of youth involvement in both the UK and Brazil.
The project will run for five years.
More information can be found here
Find out more
We are looking for 12 young people aged 16-26 with lived experience of anxiety to form a new young people’s advisory group (YPAG) for this project. This opportunity would ideally suit young people who have experience of youth involvement research work (e.g. through youth advisory groups, co-researcher work or another relevant role).
The project is five years long so the work we do together will change as the project moves through stages – set up, project delivery and dissemination and impact work. The kind of things you would be involved with include:
- Receive training in the research methods being used by the study (e.g. working with longitudinal data, qualitative skills, academic paper writing) so you feel confident to work alongside the research team delivering a mental health science project
- Co-designing and delivering a training approach for the Brazil staff and Brazilian young people in youth involvement practices building on practices in the UK and abroad
- Working as co-researchers to support the qualitative work exploring differences in the meaning and interpretation of anxiety symptoms across UK and Brazil
- Co-designing and delivering a dissemination and impact strategy – ensuring the findings of this work reach the right audiences and in the right ways
- Opportunity to learn Portuguese – we will be encouraging all group members to develop language skills to support our work in Brazil
Other important details:
- The group would meet at least four times a year both online (zoom) and in-person, scheduled at times that suit group members (for example, weekends, or evenings). More info about our meetings here
- There will be opportunities in between meetings to take on independent tasks, such as reviewing research documents, producing outputs (such as blogs, videos, social media content) and attending related events.
- The project would involve a week’s trip to Brazil at the earlier stages of the project to support the involvement work. There are limited spaces for this trip and it is optional.
- Be aged 16-26 with lived experience of anxiety
- Willingness to respect and adhere to McPin’s advisory group practices and meeting ground rules
- Are familiar with youth involvement in research (for example, as part of a YPAG, or as a co-researcher)
- Be available to join online meetings at least four times a year, e.g. on a weekend or weekday evening
- A willingness to develop and explore new practices in youth involvement by working closely with young people from Brazil (this might include learning basic Portuguese, adapting to time zones and working with a translator)
- A willingness to travel to Brazil (i.e. with members of staff and another YPAG member) is desirable, but not required to join this group
- You will be offered a payment of £25 per hour for your time and a data payment of £5 per virtual meeting
- Lunch/refreshments will be provided and all reasonable travel expenses reimbursed for in-person meetings
- Development opportunities including relevant training and optional work such as co-authorship on research papers and speaking at conferences
- For more information about how we support young people in our work, please click here
I’m interested! Who do I contact?
If you are interested in this opportunity, please email Rachel [email protected] with answers to the following questions, providing some details about relevant lived experience and interest in this project.
Alternatively, you can send your responses in audio or video format if preferred. If you need any help completing your expression of interest, you can get in touch with Rachel.
- What is your name?
- What is your gender?
- What is your ethnicity?
- What is your nearest train station?
- What is your date of birth?
- Why are you specifically interested in this project – a data science study and opportunity to learn with young people in Brazil about best practice youth involvement practices?
- Please give details of any relevant experience of anxiety:
- Please give details of any prior experience of working in youth involvement (such as a YPAG or as a co-researcher): Please include links to group or projects, any outputs you’ve been associated with from previous research projects.
- What do you enjoy most about working in a research project as a young person? What if anything is challenging?
- Do you have any relevant skills or experience that you would like to share which you feel will help you in this role?
- Sometimes after talking about topics like mental health, people feel they need a little extra support or someone to chat to. What support do you currently have in place (e.g. supportive friends, family, health professionals or mental health charities)? Is there anything that [insert name of organisation here] could do to support you or make your involvement experience better?
- How did you hear about this opportunity?
IMPORTANT:
As part of the recruitment process to this group, you may be asked to have a call with a member of McPin staff. Nothing scary! This is so you can meet us, ask us any questions, and for us to ask you about any accessibility needs, or any support you need from us and check in on your interest in this opportunity.
In this call we will also ask for a form of age verification, a document with your photo, name and date of birth. This could be a passport, Student ID card, voter ID, access card, drivers’ licence, proof of age card etc.
We will need to check that you are happy to respect and work within McPin’s ground rules and practices before a place on the study can be offered. If you have any worries about the call or about not having an appropriate document, please reach out and one of our team can support.
Mental health issues affect everyone, but membership on involvement groups do not always reflect this. We actively encourage individuals identifying as young men, LGBTQ+ youth, neurodiverse and ethnic minorities to apply.
Monday 12th May, 9am
Please note that the McPin Foundation regularly promotes opportunities on behalf of other institutions; we are not responsible for the continuation or contents of further correspondence with any project partners where we are not listed as the project main point of contact.
