Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health (TRIUMPH) Network

Childhood and adolescence are recognised as key life stages that set the foundations for health in adulthood and for the future social and economic development of the societies young people live in. Yet, young people face extraordinary pressures on maintaining health in an ever-changing environment, driven by changes in technology, communications and the media that they are exposed to. This has coincided with an increasing prevalence of mental health problems, especially among girls.

The traditional sciences of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine often focus on understanding and solving health problems at the individual level, but many of the risk factors for poor mental health and wellbeing are driven by broader social and environmental factors and affected by the relationships we have, and the settings, neighbourhoods and communities we live within. A different approach is needed to find solutions to address these risk factors and improve mental health. It is important that this new approach takes young people themselves as the starting point to make sure that their voice is heard at every stage of the research process, including when we set research priorities, in co-designing interventions, running trials, and in dissemination. To achieve this, the Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health (TRIUMPH) Network will bring together young people, health practitioners, policy-makers and those working with voluntary organisations, with academics from across clinical, social sciences, arts and humanities, design, and computer sciences disciplines. We will work together to find new ways to improve mental health and wellbeing, especially among vulnerable and disadvantaged populations where need is greatest. We will target our efforts at the peer groups, social networks and education settings with strongest influence on health behaviours in adolescence.

The TRIUMPH Network will deliver a series of events and activities to focus our attention where mental health need is greatest. This will include workshops to understand the mental health problems facing young people, find possible solutions and take forward project ideas, and information exchange and community engagement events to share learning and increase the involvement of the groups and communities affected by youth mental health issues. Network funding will be used to support small research projects to seek and develop solutions to the mental health challenges that young people face and to prepare for larger funding applications to evaluate these. Young people will be invited, and supported, to take part in all of the activities of the Network. We will employ a Design Innovation approach using different visual methods and creative outputs to support engagement with young people from various backgrounds and to make the decision-making process more accessible. In employing a Research Associate with significant experience of participatory research with young people to lead on this work, we will ensure there is support in place for vulnerable young people who take part in the Network. The TRIUMPH Network will facilitate new research collaborations to strengthen the UK evidence base and, ultimately, to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people across the UK.

Traditional approaches to understanding and solving young people's mental health problems have not yet been able to address the risk factors for poor mental health and wellbeing that are driven by broad social, behavioural, organisational, environmental and cultural factors. A transdisciplinary approach that takes young people themselves as the starting point, is needed to find solutions to address these risk factors and improve mental health. By bringing together young people, practitioners, policy-makers and multi-sectoral public and third sector partners, with academics from across clinical, social sciences, arts and humanities, design, and computer sciences disciplines, we will work collectively to find new ways to improve mental health and wellbeing, and in so doing provide significant benefit to all those affected by young people's mental health problems. Public mental health is a significant policy issue across the four nations of the UK and is frequently debated across the media and in public forums. As such, the Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health (TRIUMPH) Network will be of interest to a varied group of stakeholders from within and out with the traditional, academic mental health field, and the principal motivation of the Network is to engage widely and bring together varied interest groups. To ensure impactful benefit, Network membership will be open to anyone with an interest in young people's mental health and wellbeing and our efforts will be directly targeted at the following two stakeholder groups:

Young people: are the primary partner audience for the Network and their participation will be central to all of the Network activities. Engagement will be facilitated through two direct routes: i) the establishment of Youth Action Groups drawn from existing youth groups across the four nations of the UK, and ii) the use the Network infrastructure to 'reformat' DECIPHer's Advice Leading to Public Health Advancement (ALPHA) group as a national mental health engagement network in the context of the School Health Research Network (SHRN) in Wales, which will allow for us to gather comprehensive, broad, and inclusive perspectives of young people. They will benefit from facilitation of a rights based approach, direct participation, research literacy skills and self efficacy, alongside identification of research problems and potential solutions with ecological validity and that are more likely to be effective and relevant to their lives.

Practitioners, policy-makers and multi-sectoral public and third sector organisations: partnerships will be developed with cross UK, national, regional and local delivery stakeholders. These will be also cross multiple policy areas encompassing for example, health, education and social care and third sector organisations. In this way, the network will comprehensively span the policy/practice system for maximum impact. We will include organisations working with young people (e.g., Mental Health Foundation - from which two staff, Lee Knifton and Julie Cameron are co-investigators on the TRIUMPH Network, Young Minds, NSPCC, LGBT Youth Scotland, SAMH, Life Changes Trust, Young Scot, The Fostering Network, Association for Young People's Health); policy makers with a remit for child and adolescent (mental) health from across Westminster, the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Irish Assembly, representatives from each of the four nations' Departments of Health and Education; NHS boards and trusts; and other government bodies with a remit for public mental health (e.g., Public Health England, which has expressed support for the Network, NHS Health Scotland) or education (e.g., Education Scotland). They will benefit from new collaborative partnerships, an increase in evidence-based policy and practice, and an increased likelihood of interventions that are effective, scalable and sustainable.