What is the National Young Persons’ Advisory Group?
The National Young Persons’ Advisory Group (YPAG) provide support and guidance to researchers, clinicians, healthcare workers, and their teams with research project and clinical trial design and conduct. The group are actively involved as research partners, giving advice to researchers and their teams on different aspects of the project design.
Our YPAG, jointly coordinated with In4Kids, is made up of over 30 young people between the ages of 12 and 18 living in Ireland. They are a diverse group of children & young people with direct or indirect experience of living with chronic, acute or rare conditions, though some do not have any diagnosed condition but a strong interest in science and medicine. All are interested in having their voices heard by individuals, industry, and governmental bodies and making a difference in child health research.
What does a Young Persons’ Advisory Group do?
Children and young people are not just small adults – they have distinct physiological, developmental, and psychological characteristics and deserve the same access to high quality, evidence-based (from paediatric studies) health care as adults. To ensure that child health clinical research across Ireland is driven by the voice of children and young people, this YPAG has been established. It’s primary aim is to ensure that research is relevant, responsive, and meets the needs of the young people affected.
The YPAG’s work differs from study to study, but below are some examples of the types of work the YPAG does:
- Work with researchers to design research projects
- Develop research questions
- Design information leaflets that are interesting for young people
- Help researchers write grants for money for research
- Advise researchers on how best to recruit participants to their clinical trials
- Attend conferences and other meetings representing the YPAG
- Raise awareness of health research and the work of the YPAG on social media
- Attend courses and provide training to researchers and healthcare workers on how to incorporate the voice of young people in their work
- Come up with new research ideas
- Help promote the YPAG and clinical research on social media, websites, and through videos
Membership of the YPAG is an opportunity to meet new people, contribute to research, and most importantly be a chance for children and young people to have exciting new experiences!
How does our YPAG meet?
Meetings are held both online and in-person.
Online meetings take place once a month and are 1 hour long
In-person meetings take place three times a year, on a Saturday from 11am-4pm, in different university campus across the country
These meetings are a great opportunity to meet fellow YPAG members, meet the researchers you’ll be working with and to upskill with training sessions.
Who runs our YPAG?
Our YPAG is a joint, national initiative between In4kids and the Children’s Health Ireland Clinical Research Centre (CHI-CRC). Both groups are funded by the Health Research Board and their goal is to support our YPAG in the design and delivery of child health research in Ireland.
At the moment, our YPAG is run by our facilitators Caoimhe and Sharon!
Interested in joining our YPAG?
If you’re a young person interested in getting involved in the YPAG, please contact in4kids@ucc.ie to find out more!
PPI and YPAG support for Researchers
The National YPAG are looking to work closely and collaborate with researchers, clinicians and other allied health care professionals. The group acts as a resource to any health researcher or research team (academic or clinical), who want to incorporate the voice and opinions of children and young people into their study design.
Involving children and young people in all stages of a research project or clinical trial, but particularly the design phase, leads to higher quality, more relevant research and greater study retention rates.
So, if you’re a child health researcher looking for PPI support with:
- Grant funding applications
- Research project proposals and design
- Clinical trial design
- Patient information leaflets
- Education and dissemination planning
Click the link below to access the YPAG support application form and a coordinator will be in contact shortly.
