Herts YPAG

Who are we?

We are a young people’s research advisory group for children and young people aged 8-18 who live in Hertfordshire. We learn about research and work with researchers to help them plan and do research about children and young people’s health, care, family lives and the communities we live in.

We meet about every 6-8 weeks in the evenings after school/college (online) or on Saturdays at the University of Hertfordshire.

If you’re interested in joining the group, or want to know more, please contact us at: ypag@herts.ac.uk. We’re also on Twitter @HertsYPAG

 

The team

Louca-Mai Brady (group facilitator) Sonya Prime

 Julia Jones Elena NeriRebecca O’Connell

 

What we do

In our meetings researchers from the university and other organizations come to work with the group, where we do things like:

  • Comment on research ideas and their relevance to children and young people’s experiences and lives
  • Review project documents and advise on how to make them young people-friendly
  • Test out research methods
  • Feed back on emerging findings/initial analysis
  • Help develop research summaries and other reporting and dissemination
  • Test websites and apps
  • Help plan how best to involve children and young people in research projects

We have worked with lots of different researchers including projects on mental health, food and drink, the ways your environment and where you live can shape who you are, dealing with loss and bereavement, and work with the NIHR Bioresource and Genomics England.

As well as giving researchers advice on how to make their research children and young people-friendly, in our meetings we also:

  • Learn about how research is done and different research topics
  • Share ideas about what we think should be researched
  • Get involved in doing research
  • Write blog posts and publications and present at conferences
  • Have fun!

Researchers - get in touch!

‘I found it really helpful to speak with the YPAG right at the start of developing a research proposal. They handled a sensitive subject very well, and provided some useful insights into how young people seek support, which I will build into my work.’

If you’re a researcher interested in working with the group:

  • Contact us to discuss your project and how the group could be involved at ypag@herts.ac.uk or by filling in this web form.
  • We will then send you more information and work with you to plan and deliver your session(s)
  • After the meeting you will be asked to give feedback on how working with the YPAG has informed your research. This is really important as it demonstrates the impact of young people’s role in the design and delivery of research.

Latest from Hertfordshire YPAG

YPAG meeting

A new school year at YPAG! Food sustainability & linking mental and physical health, written by Cherish

Our YPAG group had another in-person meeting on Saturday 23rd of September, where we all met at the university again! We started off the meeting with the classic icebreaker game – two truths and one lie – butthis time with a theme, which was based on what we all did over the summer holidays. It […]

Picture of Louca-Mai and two YPAG members in a meeting room recording a podcast, talking to guests on a laptop

Future Minds: a podcast on involving children and young people in research co-produced by the Herts YPAG

We’ve made a podcast! 🎙 Episode one: Making involvement happen In the first of three podcasts we talk to some adults who help children and young people to be involved in research (facilitators) about why it matters, how to do it well and what we can do better. Thanks to Deidre Leyden from the London […]

Webinar

Improving Physical and Mental Health and Care for Young People – by Eleanor

Our July meeting was on Zoom again. We started off the meeting by doing an icebreaker game where we were put in different breakout rooms and had to find 3 things that we had in common and 3 differences. This was quite a fun way of learning more about each other. We ended up finding […]