World Mental Health Day at NIHR
Co-production in mental health research
Welcome to World Mental Health Day 2022
The NIHR is joining the World Health Organisation in celebrating World Mental Health Day 2022, which forms part of the NIHR’s commitment to embed diversity and inclusion in our culture as outlined in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy, which we launched in September this year.
World Mental Health Day is on the 10 October 2022 and the NIHR’s theme for this year is ‘Co-production in mental health research’. NIHR is supporting this important awareness day through spotlighting a blog, video and case study around the topic of mental health.
Please engage with the resources below that have been developed to raise awareness of mental health.
Esther Mukuka (she/her), NIHR Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Share the power: embracing co-production in mental health research
For World Mental Health Day, Jessica Goddard, Senior Research Manager, writes about how mental health has become a strategic priority for the NIHR and the resulting Mental Health Research Initiative.
Jessica's blog discusses:
Why mental health has become a strategic priority for the NIHR.
What the Mental Health Research Initiative is
What the Mental Health Research Initiative has achieved
The intersectional approach to funding mental health research
Co-production in mental health research
Award winning research: involving service users and carers in research
In 2022, the NIHR collaborated with the McPin Foundation and MQ: Mental Health Research, to run the prestigious mental health research service user and carer involvement awards. The awards celebrate the work of those dedicated researchers and service users who go above and beyond to design research and involve participants to improve care.
The runner-up for the award was the Enhancing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Referrals (EnCAMHS).
Heidi Tranter is an assistant clinical psychologist for the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, working on the EN-CAMHS study. By embedding service user and carer involvement into every point of the study EN-CAMHS, issues with recruitment were resolved. Listen to Heidi talk about how this involvement has improved the study.
How has co-production shaped the EN-CAMHS study?
NIHR's Mental Health Research Incubator
The NIHR has collaborated with the Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH-TRC) to produce the Mental Health Incubator. Incubators support capacity building and multidisciplinary career development in targeted areas. Mental Health Research supports ambitious mental health professionals who are exploring opportunities in research.
There are many case studies of researchers discussing their careers in mental health research. Dr Andrew Grundy discusses his experience as a Lived Experience Researcher.
“I realised that my lived experience was a form of knowledge and expertise that could make a difference”
Useful links and resources
Books: Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?
Videos: Action for Happiness
NIHR resources: Resources for co-production.
Publications: Mental Health Foundation
Podcasts Mental Health Foundation
EDI campaigns and events
