August 5, 2025
Hello from the team
Thanks for signing up to receive updates from the Bath Mental Health Research Group, funded by the National Institute for Health Research. Our team is growing and we recently welcomed a number of staff to the research team including: Tom Jenkins, Atiyya Nisar and Rosie McGuire
CBT for Psychosis Conference Hosted at Bath
#Beckfest was hosted at Bath this year. This is the International Meeting for CBT for Psychosis – this is the 26th meeting and the first time its been hosted at Bath. Dr Pamela Jacobsen director of Bath MHRG was the host and organising chair and Dr Tom Jenkins, research associate was on the local organising committee. The conference brings together international experts, including clinicians, researchers and experts by experience to share the latest evidence on the development, evaluation and implementation of psychological therapies for psychosis. Above is Pamela and Tom’s poster presentation highlighting our local work on early intervention, particularly relating to wok package 4, focusing on trauma, adverse childhood experiences and stress reactivity. We had delegates from as far away as Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia!
Launch of the ‘Unlock Wellbeing’ Website
We’re excited to share the newly launched ‘Unlock Wellbeing’ website, led by Dr Maria Loades and designed in partnership with 30 young people, working on the youth advisory group (YPAG) for the research.
If you’re a young person, parent, or practitioner this is a great opportunity to access single session interventions for young people, which have been used in the US and we are now testing for use in the UK. Access them here: https://lnkd.in/e_etG76q
Young people’s feedback about accessing single session interventions, showed that they found them enjoyable, accessible and useful.
“I liked the interactivity of it and how relatable it felt.”
“It definitely changed my perspective on how I treat myself.”
Back in May, we had a visit from Orygen Global to talk about the global framework for youth mental health. This is a model which focuses on a number of key principles that underpin an approach to youth mental health which aligns with the groups aims and aspirations: rapid, easy and affordable access;youth specific care;awareness,engagement and integration;early intervention;youth partnership;family engagement and support;continuous improvement; and prevention.
You can find out more about Orygen’s work here
Over the last few months, Harriet (she/they) public engagement lead for the group has worked hard to network locally across our target B&NEs, Swindon and Wiltshire area. She has set up meetings, visited projects and listened and collated needs of the local organisations and stakeholders. We’re really excited to be working with colleagues in local organisations such as Bath City Farm, Bath Rugby foundation, Youth Connect South West, SMASH and Trowbridge Futures. We’ve also set up strong connections with the local integrated care boards (ICB), local authority public health teams and more. We are keen to keep working in partnership with key stakeholders as we develop the work.
Our work package looking into trauma and adversity in childhood and the impact of this on stress reactivity is looking for 6-8 young people with lived experience of trauma and adversity to become involved with our lived experience advisory group to support the development of this research and co-create interventions with our team.
Expressions of interest can be made through this sign up link
Youth Futures Foundation has launched this interesting briefing about four factors impacting on youth mental health nationally. The top 4 areas found to be impacting young people’s mental health were: Worsening sleep quality.
Employment precarity and affordability pressures social media and smartphone use reduction in children and youth services
The Impact of Patient, and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) on those involvedInvolving people in research has benefits for the research in that it informs it and can make it ‘better’ and more grounded in lived experiences. But, we don’t always hear from those involved and what it means for them, we’ve started to meet with young people who are interested in getting involved with our central advisory group and begun hearing from them about their motivation for involvement. So far, young people have shared that they are ‘excited’ about this opportunity and that they want to ‘give back’ and make a contribution that they hope will be make a difference to others with similar lived experiences to themselves! This article talks more about the impact of PPIE and the importance of lived expeirence work in research – if you’d like to read more here
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