Youth-GEMS – Young Experts Advisory Collective – one year on…
Youth Engagement Facilitator, Ella Sheltawy, share’s her experience of working with and supporting the our Young Experts for the Youth GEMs project, in partnership with Maastricht and Utrecht University after its first year of inception.
Hi, my name is Ella, and I’ve been a Youth Worker everywhere from schools to hospitals, systems change co-production projects to residential homes, before I came to the YOUTH GEMS Project as a Facilitator. The project sparked my interest because I am acutely aware that so much of our daily lives, both professionally and personally, are geared towards learning more about mental health: how to accept it, cope with it, and change attitudes towards it. However, for me, it was a long time since I’d really honed in on the psychological and physiological underpinnings.
The Youth GEMS project looks at doing exactly that, it’s a 5-year study bringing together researchers across universities throughout Europe and Australia, to look at the transition of a mental health problem to a mental illness in young people. It brings together numerous strands of research, exploring genetics, artificial intelligence, and qualitative interviews to name a few. So where does youth work cross into scientific research?
Now, this is the exciting part! The study aims not just to value scientific research, but also the experience and voice of young people living with mental health. Here’s where my organisation Euro Youth Mental Health (EYMH) comes in – we are a collective of volunteers and young people aiming to improve the mental health support young people receive across Europe, by involving young experts by experience
What would you say have been the best things about Youth GEMs project?
“Meeting like-minded people and knowing that my voice and opinion matters” Lotte, 24, Netherlands
“Great opportunity to learn more about ongoing research into mental health :)” Daphne, 25, France
So we were perfectly poised to join the project and build a group of diverse and passionate young people with personal experience of living with mental health difficulties and the systems that aim to support it. In YOUTH GEMs we do this through two key avenues: a monthly science cafe where young people meet with researchers, learn and co-design alongside them, and more in-depth co-production on specific areas of research.
So, what was it like coming to the project? At first, a little confusing! Because the study encompasses so many different streams of data, there are many small teams or ‘work packages’ working within it. And after getting my head around that – it was exciting! The young people and I make up the YOUTH GEMS Experts Advisory Collective, and we sit in Work Package 2. My first job was to meet the researchers working there: Simona & Lisette, both based at Utrecht University in Amsterdam, were both warm and welcoming and crucially brought a passion for hearing young peoples’ voices within the project and ensuring it is accessible to young people with a wide range of backgrounds and needs. After meeting the staff team, it was time to individually meet the young people already involved and those reaching out – I can honestly say, I was blown away by the drive, knowledge, experience and resilience of the group!
As a facilitator, it was vital to me that the cafes were engaging to young people and I believe one of the key components of this is ensuring everyone feels comfortable in an online space: after all, you can’t co-produce with someone you don’t know. So, it’s icebreaker o’clock! We spend the first half an hour of every meeting getting to know each other a little better, from quick-fire questions to scavenger hunts to book clubs, these always seem to shatter the silence, and I am hopeful that we are building a strong team. We also spent time co-producing our working agreement together: what we expect from each other and the project as a whole. I felt the ethical drive of the group, coming up with rules like: ‘We are a team who act with integrity and equity: we value diversity, we actively listen, we act with empathy, honesty and respect.
“I am still involved because I get to share my knowledge and it is appreciated. And I keep learning more and more about different topics and about myself. It is a constant learning opportunity” Lotte, 24, Netherlands
After the fun we get down to business, or in this case, the science. The researchers who have visited the cafe have talked and learned on a range of subjects: data storage of the human genome, how to conduct interviews with (over 100!) young people about their personal experiences, and looking at typing patterns to begin to create a picture of an individual’s mental health at the time. There has been a huge learning for me & I hope the young people will say the same. Speaking of which, watch this space – it’s their voices you will be hearing here next!
See a video from one of our Young Experts at the Kick-off meeting in 2022 here.
Euro Youth Mental Health 