Co-produced care: Co-production by academic researchers and young people to foster youth participation in mental health in Brazilian schools

Speaker: Sheila Murta, Associate Professor, Institute of Psychology, University of Brasília

Co-production by researchers and young people for the development of mental health research and interventions is increasingly common. However, this model raises a number of challenges, related, for instance to communication, power and control. This presentation will focus on the lived experience of co-production of a digital intervention by institutional researchers and youth citizen researchers to foster youth participation for mental health in Brazilian schools. Using a collaborative autoethnographic methodology, we examined emerging challenges, realignments and unplanned learnings that took place throughout the process. Throughout the project we created formal and informal mechanisms for accountability and fair inclusion of multiple voices; we re-organised responsibilities and implemented care practices to handle overload and promote equitable participation. Ongoing reflection and readjustment in the face of emerging tensions helped develop a working practice that increasingly embodied more democratic and egalitarian values. The collective care invested in the process gave rise to synergy, trust and intergroup friendship. By reflecting upon challenges and solutions in the coproduction process, we hope to provide a critical lens to understanding and implementing participatory approaches in mental health in contexts of vulnerability.

Sheila Murta is an Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Brasília, Brazil. She works on the development, evaluation and dissemination of mental health interventions, focusing primarily on prevention and promotion interventions, across the life span. She has worked on child mistreatment prevention for first-time parents, dating violence prevention for adolescents, suicide prevention for university students, interventions to promote young adults’ sense of purpose and forgiveness, occupational stress management for adult workers, and retirement planning for middle-age workers.

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