Inclusion and involvement of young people in research: moving to digital YPAG meetings

Including everyone When trying to ensure research is meaningful, it is vital to have a diverse group of young people to accurately reflect teenage society. This means including the advantaged, the disadvantaged, those with and without mental health challenges, different identities and minorities where possible. Measures can be taken such as: flexible scheduling...
YPAG Online – Young People Supporting Each Other Through Lockdown

Addressing young people’s needs through co-produced research in the time of COVID-19 Amid the COVID-19 crisis, YPAG meetings are difficult, as is socialising and other sources of enjoyment for youth. Just after school closure, the YPAG conducted a survey with The McPin Foundation gauging how young people are dealing with the problem, with...
Leap Day YPAG 2020

The year 2020 is a leap year, and on the extra day the new YPAG group had their first official meeting. Led mainly by Eddie, Vanessa, and a collection of older YPAG members, the populous session was divided into five training sections, where teams worked on activities to further their understanding of what the YPAG...
A YPAG Taster Session for our New Members

On the 23rd of November, the YPAG had an introductory session for all of the new members. One session for those in years 9-10, and another for the year 11-12s, run by a few members of the original YPAG group and the usual group leaders Gabi, David, Vanessa and Eddie. It was a lovely opportunity...
The YPAG Returns from Summer Break

Earlier this month, a smaller-than-usual YPAG group had its first meeting of the academic year. Our guest speaker from the previous session, David Lyreskog, a researcher in the BeGOOD team, returned to recount just how much progress had been made with the development of the new digital game. Now the game is nearly finished, and...
Joint Meeting – Last of 2018/2019!
We recently had our last meeting of this academic year. Because it was our final meeting, it was joint between groups 1 and 2. In this meeting we had a guest speaker, David Lyreskog, come speak about his project and the new digital game being developed as part of the BeGOOD team. We also discussed...
Social Media and Identity
In our March meeting we discussed the digital diaries results! It's really exciting to continue with this project and also think about how we will disseminate the study findings in an exciting way to make sure young people will read them. Next we discussed a case where Facebook has been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to...
Coding, Artificial Intelligence and More!
In February we coded interviews from a NEUROSEC study which explored young people’s perspectives on genetic testing for Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, we went through the interviews and coded for where the participant would like to be tested (doctor, home, research group), the social support the participant was interested in having with them (friend, family), who...
Joint Holiday Meeting!
Today was a very special meeting as we joined up with the Mental Health YPAG group! First, we met with representatives from the Oxford Cognitive Health Clinical Research Facility. A Clinical Research Facility (CRF) is a dedicated space where experimental medicine research studies are conducted. In Oxford we have a cognitive health CRF, which provides...
Language, coding and campaigning

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Young People's Advisory Group (YPAG), as we enter our second year! We marked this milestone at our meeting on Saturday, where reunited after the summer, we knuckled down to work on some very exciting projects. We began by discussing the Generation R glossary. I know myself how difficult...
Planning for iCAN and a new study

12 May sadly commenced our final Young Person’s Advisory Group (YPAG) meeting of the year, and though most of us hope to carry on, some members maybe leaving us, meaning that new members will also be joining us, bringing fresh ideas and perspectives to the team as a whole. Although this was our final session of...
Celebrating One Year of YPAG

The 10th of March saw another exciting meeting of the YPAG working on a range of ideas. The day began with considering how best to reach a large and varied audience of young people for the dissemination of a campaign about an upcoming mental health report. Creating social media videos and contacting celebrities and vloggers...
Big questions, exciting ideas, and a delicious cake

Hi everyone, With half-term leading to depleting numbers, a reasonable turnout managed to traipse their way to Jesus College for an exciting afternoon of brainstorming and cake. The first item on our agenda was to create potential ‘big questions’ for Oxplore, a nifty project created by Oxford University to engage young people in complex debates...
YPAG Discusses Digital Diaries, Autism and Alzheimer’s Studies

This month’s meeting had a busy agenda as always! We started by reviewing a paper by YPAG members Kira Kretzschmar and Holly Tyrollon on Chatbots, which we had tested out last session, and discussing whether or not we agree with the main points of the paper. This was really exciting as the paper is due...
Apps, Games and Mental Health: A Visit with Radboud University

With applications on phones and tablets becoming a staple of our lives, along with the massive influence social media has on the lives of young people, this was the focus of our most recent meeting. To do so, we met with Isabela Granic and Anna Lichtwarck-Aschoff from Radboud University, the Netherlands (http://isabelagranic.com/). Initially, we explored how young...
Apps and Games

On the 9th September, with bright eyes and the end of holidays approaching us, we returned from summer and headed straight into discussion about the use of games in bioethics and mental health apps, which we've tested over the last few weeks. After being spoken to by BeGOOD summer placement students, Abi Robinson and Robyn...
YPAG Group 1 met again!

Hello everyone, We are Arianna and Gabi, YPAG facilitators, and here is an update on our latest YPAG meeting, which took place on the 24th of June at the Mathematical Institute. During the first half of the meeting, we were pleased to have Elizabeth Nuthall, Lucy Palmer and Triona Cassey from the Department of Psychiatry....
Curious about Group 2’s latest meeting? Read here!

On the 10th of June YPAG Group 2 met for the second time to discuss issues concerning mental health of young people and aid in the development of several scientific studies conducted by talented researchers. Corpus Christi Collage was the location of this session, which is the same venue we used in the last meeting; like...
Statistics and Studies – a YPAG Meeting Summary

Hi everyone! I’m Ed, a member of the Young People’s Advisory Group writing committee, blogging about all the exciting stuff the YPAG get up to… Our most recent meeting was divided into two parts. Firstly, we embarked on a training session in research. We delved into issues surrounding young people participating in studies – for...
Our first meeting

Welcome! My name is Nellie and I’m part of the Writing Committee for the Young People’s Advisory Group. The young people’s advisory group is a community determined to discover the personal ideas and observations of young people regarding scientific and ethical issues. In our first meeting we discussed the topic of research… We explored the...