At the recent BrainWaves Living Well conference, we invited our Youth Ambassador Naavya to speak directly to guests and ask why including young voices is so important in the type of research BrainWaves is conducting.
Why does youth voice matter in research?
Naavya asked this question to our guests to find out why this is so central to the work we do here at BrainWaves and within the wider research community.
Speaking first to James Robertson from BeeWell, he responded;
“If you really want to understand something, it starts with the population it affects and why they think it’s important. I think in any research involving young people, making sure you understand their perspective and how they think about it is just really important. It informs a much better approach to the research, and it will give better results and better outcomes.”
Next, Professor Sarah Bauermeister from the University of Oxford said:
“Youth voice to the BrainWaves research and scientific team is everything because the data we collect is the youth voice. The youth voice provides us with data that we can analyse to create scientific outcomes to make a difference in their lives by creating new solutions, new interventions for their mental health and wellbeing.”
Thom Godfrey-Faussett, an educational researcher at BrainWaves, replied:
“Instead of thinking about the interventions we create as being imposed on young people, we believe it’s something that’s being done with young people. I think for me, that’s an ethical obligation.”
Finally, speaking to Julian Turner from Brainwaves, he said:
“It matters for three reasons. Youth voice determines what we research, how we research it, and why we research it. What we research is because all of the questions that go into our questionnaire we discuss with our youth advisory group; how we do it, because there are important issues like people feeling confident about the data security and the consent that we ask; but most of all, why we do it. We do this work because we’re trying to map the experience of young people in the UK and really understand what matters to them in terms of their mental health and well-being. Otherwise, there’d be no point in Brainwaves.”
What does our Youth Ambassador think?
Reflecting on her experience at the conference, Naavya said:
“I think Brainwaves is such an amazing organisation and it really helps the teenagers’ mental health, which is a problem that’s very close to me, and I think it’s so good for empowering young people. My favourite thing about today, I think it’s just amazing to be with like-minded people who really care about the cause, and it’s been really interesting listening to all the speakers and people who are really interested in the subject talk about what they are doing. I learned a lot from it.”
Youth voice and sharing their lived experiences is the beating heart of BrainWaves research. It is what drives our development, our resources, our funding and our support in schools. We are extremely grateful to our Youth Ambassadors and members of our Young Persons’ Advisory Group for giving their time to help amplify youth voice even more.
Want to know more about our work with young people? Visit the ‘For Young People’ section of our website to learn about what we do.
Naavya chose to participate in the BrainWaves programme because it is a brilliant opportunity to offer a youth perspective on teen mental health. She believes that in this ever changing world of social media, it is even more important to ensure that teens have the tools to navigate it safely and use it positively. The BrainWaves conference was incredibly interesting and inspiring.
“In my role as BrainWaves Youth Ambassador, I would really like to understand the struggles that teens face and also learn and be part of the solutions. Mental health education and research are vital to our society so that we can intervene early and come up with solutions to improve wellbeing.
The conference was very interesting, and I was so inspired by the speakers, as they are working so hard to understand how mental health affects teens.”
