Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health (TRIUMPH NETWORK)

Principal Investigator

Jo Inchley (Network Director)

Co-investigators

Laurence Moore, Simon Murphy, Alice Maclachlan, Christina McMellon, Clare Spencer, Emily Cunningham, Julie Cameron, Kay Tisdall, Lee Knifton, Chris Bonnell, Mark McCann, Pauline Adair, Peter Gee, Rhiannon Evans, Rhys Bevan-Jones, Rory O’Connor, Ruth Hunter, Sharon Simpson, Andrea Taylor, Tara French, Ruth Lewis

Background

TRIUMPH is part of eight Mental Health Networks funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Childhood and adolescence are key life stages that set the foundations for health in adulthood. However, young people face real challenges to maintain their mental health. They live in an ever-changing environment, driven by changes in technology, communications and the media. Changes that have coincided with an increase in mental health problems, especially amongst girls.

One in ten children and young people experience mental health problems, yet we have few effective solutions for the improvement of youth mental health. Treatment and care, when accessible, treats the problem and not the causes. We believe there is a different approach – one that seeks to understand young people’s strengths, which we can draw on to improve mental health. This approach takes young people themselves as the starting point.

Aims and objectives

Develop effective transdisciplinary, solution-focused partnerships with academics, policy makers, practitioners and young people across the UK
Identify opportunities and challenges in youth mental health, set the agenda, and create research capacity
Generate new, critical approaches to addressing the social, behavioural, organisational, environmental and cultural causes of mental health
Undertake transdisciplinary co-production to develop, evaluate and implement effective and sustainable interventions to accelerate progress in improving youth mental health

Study Design

TRIUMPH has three research themes and cross-cutting work packages that are delivered with partners from across the UK.

Themes:

Key groups (co-lead Rhiannon Evans)
Social connections and relationships
Schools and other education settings (co-lead Simon Murphy)

Work packages:

Partnership agenda setting
Intervention development and co-production
Knowledge exchange and community engagement

More can be read about the themes and work packages on the TRIUMPH website.

Young people are central to the TRIUMPH Network. We are working with young people to facilitate their ideas, using a design innovation approach to turn these into reality, into new solutions to improve mental health. In addition, there will be opportunities to apply for funding through the TRIUMPH Network to take forward these research ideas and to support development of new solution focused approaches to improve youth mental health.