The importance of lived experience

The experience of young people, parents and carers is essential to our work. By having a team of lived experience partners, we ensure their voices are heard across our activity.

Representing the voice of parents and carers are our Parent Carer Lived Experience Partners and Parent Carer Lived Experience Lead, who are involved in many aspects of our work, particularly as it relates to families.

We also have a group of youth ambassadors, six this year, aged between 16 and 25, who bring their own individual expertise and lived experience. They offer guidance and recommendations about young people and their support systems from the viewpoints of young people themselves.

The voices of parents and carers

This year, our Parent Carer Lived Experience Partners have worked closely with our Education Programme Manager and expert trainers to develop and deliver the Whole School Approach ‘Train the Trainer’ programme. This will enable more trainers to work with whole school communities on mental wellbeing, including staff, parents, carers and students.

Designed to champion the voices of parents and carers in research into children and young people’s mental health, it is guided by a steering group of parents and carers with lived experience.

The network is always keen to invite more parents and carers to take part in relevant research and recently launched a 12-part video series aimed at busting common myths that might be a barrier – for example, ‘Do I need medical knowledge to get involved?’ or ‘Does my child need to have a diagnosis?’

All the myths, scripts and voices are from parents and carers in the network who have been there, supporting their child with mental health difficulties and getting involved in research.

Watch the videos

The team continues to co-develop and co-deliver a number of our webinars and is working with the Youth Ambassadors to deliver workshops for the Trust’s staff. These explore the principles and impact of co-production, helping staff embed co-productive approaches across the charity.

Their voice is heard literally too – Lived Experience Lead Nikki Chapman spoke powerfully at last year’s London Carol Service about her experience as a parent of a child struggling with their mental health and the importance of parent carer peer support.

Examples include the creation and co-delivery of webinars on topics such as starting secondary school, and neurodiversity and mental health. Not only does this mean we ensure young people’s voices are central to the content, it also means we feature the perspective of young people who have specific relevant lived experience.

Research

One of our most recent research collaborations is with Dr Faith Orchard at the University of East Anglia, supporting the roll-out of a sleep intervention for young people experiencing anxiety and depression, alongside insomnia. Our ambassadors have worked with her, reviewing resources and contributing actively to the research design steering group.

Some of the ambassadors have taken part in a focus group for a research project at the University of Cambridge. Called SORTS, which stands for Supportive Response to Self-harm, the output has been an online resource for schools about self-harm. We have been collaborating on this project with Dr Anne-Marie Burn and her team since 2024. The work was recently recognised with a Highly Commended Collaboration Award at the Cambridge Awards for Research Impact and Engagement.

We hope this has given you a flavour of the brilliant contribution made by our youth ambassadors. Amongst many other things, they have also cheered on the Charlie Waller runners at the Reading Half Marathon, reviewed training materials and communications for our fundraising appeals, and supported the recruitment of two office-based roles for the Trust.

Meet our youth ambassadors