One of our partner programmes is Born in Bradford, an internationally-recognised research programme which aims to find out what keeps families healthy and happy by tracking the lives of over 60,000 Bradfordians. One of their key collaborations has been with the Healthy Minds Apprentices. These are a group of young people aged 16-24 working across the Bradford district and Craven to support children and young people, communities and schools with their mental health and wellbeing.

They are commissioned by the Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership to help shape local mental health services work, deliver awareness workshops in the community including anti-bullying campaigns in schools, conduct academic reports and audits, and take part in co-production, co-design, community action and youth engagement.

They shared their thoughts in this video on the meaning of research inclusion and which areas researchers need to consider if they want to carry out meaningful research involving a diverse range of participants. We would like to acknowledge the Yorkshire & Humber Applied Research Collaboration in the production of this video.

Their key messages are around making sure that people who need extra support to be involved are given the assistance that they need and that people are included from a range of socio-economic or racial backgrounds, from different age groups and who have different agendas and beliefs.

Some of the barriers which they identified included:

• Lack of information given to parents meaning that they decline to give permission for their children to participate.
• Long gaps between meetings can lead to difficulties for some children (particularly those from Irish traveler and Romani communities) who may have moved on before follow-up sessions take place.
• Language barriers.
• Lack of Wi-Fi access in the home for some young people.
• If individuals are asked to travel without reimbursement, they may be more reluctant to participate.

Suggested strategies to overcome these difficulties were:

• Briefing parents ahead of time so that they are aware of what the research is about
• Asking for parents’ contact details to keep them apprised so they feel confident about their children’s participation.
• For Traveller communities, ask for their contact details so that you can follow-up if needed. If they do not have any contact details, consider helping them to create an email through which to communicate.
• If interpreters are unavailable, providing information in written form may also help with language barriers.
• Provide a list of community centres or libraries that offer free Wi-Fi.

One of their key recommendations though was for researchers to be prepared to travel to places where young people feel most comfortable. One example offered was a local cricket club which offers a place for young people to socialise and feel safe. Researchers need to think beyond merely reimbursing participants and consider providing links to support groups around the research topic under discussion.

We also talked to The Future Starts with Us Group, a group of 15 young people who represent diverse backgrounds from across Bradford.  They work with researchers on local mental health research and they shared that they do not often see people in research who they can relate to. This makes it more difficult for them to explain their backgrounds or lives. It is therefore important that researchers work to bridge that gap and to provide understanding about the opportunities that research provides and how they are able to contribute and also what careers are available.