What’s the project?
All young people feel anxious or worried every now and then. However, a small number of teenagers worry all the time, and don’t feel they can stop or control their worrying. When it starts to get in the way of the things that they want or need to do, like sitting exams or spending time with their friends, we call this Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
We’re a team of researchers based at the University of Oxford, who are interested in learning about Generalised Anxiety Disorder in young people. In particular, we want to know more about the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that cause some young people to worry more than others.
We plan to find out what worry looks and feels like for young people. Then, we’ll use all our learnings to develop a short and effective therapy, which we will test to see how well it works!
This project is funded by the Medical Research Council and University College, Oxford.
Find out more
Our Oxford team are looking for 5-8 young people to help us with this project. The group will meet online over Microsoft Teams to discuss their thoughts and ideas for how to make the research better.
You can take part in lots of different ways – from a few hours over a week or two, to longer-term involvement in our study.
You could:
- Help design interview questions.
- Become a co-researcher! This would involve helping our team to understand and make sense of the things young people tell us in their interviews.
- Give feedback on the findings of our studies.
- Let us know what you think of our study information materials (posters and advertisements, etc).
Your contribution will help us to understand Generalised Anxiety Disorder in teenagers, so we can develop better treatments that will benefit other young people in the future.
- Based in the UK
- Aged 13 to 18 years old
- Have lived experience of anxiety or worrying (but you don’t need to have Generalised Anxiety Disorder)
- Access to a stable internet connection and computer with a camera
For safety, we ask that all young people keep their cameras on during our meetings. If you have any concerns about this, please get in touch and we can discuss what support is available.
- Payment in the form of a £15 voucher per hour of involvement. For longer projects, we will agree the number of hours with you in advance.
- Lottie Shipp, the student researcher, will have a one-to-one call with you at the start of the project to answer your questions and discuss anything we can do to support you throughout. Your parent/carer is welcome to join this call, too.
- You’ll get a behind the scenes insight into how research works and why we do it.
- You’ll learn new skills and will have the opportunity to meet other young people who are taking part in the research, too.
- We can make reasonable adjustments where necessary – for example, you might want to meet one-to-one or type in the chat rather than speaking in meetings.
- You can contact Lottie Shipp ([email protected]) at any time during the project if you have any questions or need further support.
If you are interested in this opportunity, please email [email protected] with brief answers to the following questions:
- What is your name?
- What is your date of birth?
- Are you based in the UK?
- Why are you interested in this specific opportunity?
- Please give details of any relevant experience
- 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 the University of Oxford could do to support you or make your involvement experience better?
- How did you hear about this opportunity?
You are welcome to 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 Lottie Shipp.
6th May, 5pm
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.
