Since launching the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) in March, we’ve proudly come together for four additional meetings, each filled with new ideas and inspiring conversations.

At these meetings, we’ve welcomed several YOUTHreach consortium members. In April, Dr Anita Schick from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, joined us to explore the three interventions at the heart of this project. We asked young people to share their ideas on what measures could best capture the changes sparked by these interventions (e.g., happiness and social connectedness). Their insights have formed the basis of our youth co-created outcome measure.

In June, Dr Dorothee Horstkötter and Dr Ricky Janssen from Maastricht University joined us to explore ethics research in the context of YOUTHreach, sharing valuable insights to help shape interventions in youth mental healthcare. The session also gave our youth representatives a chance to reflect on what matters most to them, and to consider how they could contribute their voices to other advisory groups across the project. We also had initial discussions over outcome measures, and which out of the ones suggested in the previous meeting should be prioritised. Positive outcomes were the main findings from this discussion.

In July, Dr Maeve Dwan-O’Reilly and Fenna Hellegers from University of Galway and Amsterdam UMC respectively, joined us to discuss the MOST intervention and explore opportunities for involvement in the steering group and translation work. Together, we explored strategies for engaging the community and effective ways to recruit participants through social media. We also welcomed Leon Vreling, the former president of AEGEE-Europe, who provided an overview of their organisation and its role within YOUTHreach. They collaborated with young people, including a member of the YAG, to produce a short video offering valuable insights into the accessibility of youth mental healthcare across Europe.