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